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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28834110">Variable, Volume 1: Instantiation</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/RControversy/pseuds/RControversy'>RControversy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rockman X | Mega Man X, Rockman | Mega Man - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 13:22:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,062</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28834110</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/RControversy/pseuds/RControversy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A novelization of events leading up to the first Mega Man X game. Seven billion people lost their lives in an event which none can remember. Names like Light, Wily, and Rock are the stuff of scripture, and those who go digging for the truth are often hated and feared. After all, truth always threatens change. This is a story of a change named X.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><b>Author</b> <b>’s Note</b></p><p>This project was originally begun in 2016, but after writing the first few chapters and posting them to my account on FF.Net, I was distracted by other things. It turns out that this was fortuitous, as I've had the time to think it through a bit more and come back to it with an improved writing style, well aware of the type of story I want to tell. It is now being posted here and on FF.Net. I hope you enjoy <em>Instantiation</em>.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>1986</b>
</p><p> </p><p>The vodka-reek of the soldier next to him conspired with the bumps in the road to force Sergei Sidaikhmanra awake. Being a Somewhat Important Person in the Soviet Union, it was hardly his first time being loaded into the back of an armored truck in the dead of night, nor the first time the men with guns couldn’t or wouldn’t explain why. Likely what awaited him was an Actually Important Person who would tell him how he could advance the glory of the state, though he couldn’t rule out a hole in the ground roughly described by his measurements.</p><p>The latter seemed more and more probable as the ride stretched past an hour, two hours of country road. As the sun reached rose glories through the window, he stopped trying to guess his fate. Eventually the truck drew to a halt, the driver exchanged words with someone; they passed onto a surface both unusually uniform and gently sloping downward. Morningglow was traded for merciless white halogen.</p><p>When next they stopped, the doors flung open and a strong grip was either trying to hurry him off the truck or tear his arm from his socket. He let his feet carry him out and winced under the sterile lights.</p><p>“Which one is this?” A voice like scratching old leather. A sound of papers rustling.</p><p>“Sergei Sidaikhmanra.”</p><p>“Sidawhat? Oh, right. So you’re this ‘Doctor Cossack’ I’ve heard about.”</p><p>Sergei could finally open his eyes enough: a short man whose neck filled his shirt-collar, a charcoal suit, a well-worn look of indifference. The minister of somesuch, then.</p><p>“Some people do call me that, Comrade . . . ?”</p><p>“No need to trouble yourself with my name, Comrade Cossack. This is likely the only time you’ll see me.”</p><p>Sergei scanned his surroundings: a vast concrete bunker, grey hulking and vault ribbed, the sort of place one wasn’t brought for the short term. At least a hundred people busied themselves with some machines he recognized, others he didn’t. A single tent held pride of place in the furthest recess, cathedral-white.</p><p>“What can I do for our Republic, Comrade?” he asked. The minister turned on heel and made for the tent; a rifle butt urged him forward and the soldier attached to it made what somebody must have told him was an intimidating grunt.</p><p>“In case this wasn’t clear yet, everything you see, hear, say, do, and think is now a state secret,” the minister said, drawing back the tent flap and ushering Sergei in.</p><p>“Officially, the impact outside Yakutsk has been attributed to a meteor. What we actually found was this.”</p><p><em> This </em> lay on a steel pallet. It had a head, torso, two arms, and two legs roughly positioned and proportioned like those of men. End familiarity. Floodlights glared down on it but their rays fell, irretrievable, into most of its surfaces so that detail was hard to discern. Except for the face: cracked yellow glass eyes, grate forming a rictus grin. Sergei was grateful of the excuse to look back at the minister when he cleared his throat.</p><p>“What we know about it so far is that it’s a machine, it’s not from Earth, and this isn’t the only one.”</p><p>“It isn’t?”</p><p>“Remember the meteor that fell off the coast of Japan that same night?”</p><p>“So the Japanese—”</p><p>“Meaning, really, the Americans have it. That makes finding out everything we can about this thing and putting that to work for us a matter of national security,” the minister said. “Along with the other scientists and engineers here, you were identified as a leading expert in a relevant field.”</p><p>It wasn’t immediately apparent to Sergei what business a computer networking researcher had with what appeared to be an alien robot demon, but presumably figuring that out was also his responsibility.</p><p>“You’re the last addition to the research team, so you’ve got some catching up to do. Get to it.”</p><p>Fear had not won out over Sergei’s curiosity since he was a child; children are often surprisingly wise, he reminded himself. Better to leave now than risk another look into those riven eyes and find something looking back.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>2049</b>
</p><p> </p><p>First sleep, then horror. A billion pairs of eyes opened to find seven billion others never would again. Some rotted in untouched cities, gleaming glass-and-steel necropoles; others left scorch-black bones in charnel fields. People, thoughts, years before the waking stood on the other side of a fogged window. Those few gifted with sharp fragments of memory were made—or made themselves—sages and the sages gave these fragments a name: Cataclysm.</p><p>The first years were of trepidation, sifting through the ruins for understanding but not too much; each survivor was held by a shapeless fear that all this had been done to them of someone’s will. People ringing craters where millions smoldered looked up at the night sky dancing with pale blue light and saw ghosts warning them of . . . what? They hoarded any scrap of book or newspaper still intact, any machine that still worked; they found no truth.</p><p>Yet mankind persists. Taboo became tradition as years turned to decades; the dead were given their sacred places free from the touch of the living and people organized into hundreds of small polities around cities, towns, and villages and most accepted their wish to know would stay a wish. Only when the wrecks were found did a story coalesce, for they had the flesh of men hung from metal rods encasing organs of wire and flickering light. Each survivor who saw them knew that this was what had waited for them in the dark, that had reached for them through their sudden cold sweats. Memories of sages snapped further into focus, and names sprung forth.</p><p>Light. Wily. Rock. To speak these names was to call up years of war and suffering for many. They remembered a devil in the body of a frail old man who nearly held the world in his hand, a saint who built a machine to stop him.</p><p>These <em> robots </em> were the great sin that had brought the Cataclysm about, on that the sages agreed. Some believed the machines themselves were evil, others that mankind had made them so; still others that the machines were innocent but man, Promethean, had offended God by presuming to create intelligence. This last gave rise to the Church of the Remnant.</p><p>Truth bows to instinct; those who’d survived clung to their fear of the thinking machine as infant to mother and gifted this fear to their children, armor and sword. The Remnant’s call to reject the thinking machine, reaffirm the primacy of humanity, and cede to God the creation of minds spoke to many, and thus their influence grew. In time, the Church took for itself sole right to delve the ruins of the old world, recover what they deemed safe, and leave forgotten what they didn’t. They called the scars left by the Cataclysm “Exclusion Zones,” and enforced their boundaries by penalty of law where they could, by penalty of Sicario where they could not.</p><p>Fear bows to curiosity, in time; the scripture-vivid nightmares of the old lost color each generation. A child takes up a shovel and digs for something more than they have been given.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>2062</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Crushed velvet reached up to embrace Xavier as he fell back into the chair, drained from wiggling with all due politeness out of the Minister of State’s job offer. He let his gaze drift up from the hotel lobby to admire the octahedral glass chandelier, champagne-lit. Its hard, certain lines were reassuring after a long day of conventioneering.</p><p>“Try not to hate me, but I could have rescued you back there,” a man said, forcing a thin chuckle.</p><p>“I’ll try, but no promises,” Xavier said, closing his eyes. “I’ll be with you in a sec, Otto.” Long, slow exhalations. “Okay, I’m here. What’s up?”</p><p>“Y’mind?” Otto pointed a thick finger to the chair at Xavier’s left, didn’t wait for his response. He reached in his coat pocket for a pack of cigarettes, remembered where they were, withdrew his hand with a grunt. He threw Xavier a smile, one without teeth.</p><p>“That’s a bad sign,” Xavier said. “Is this about the Karoyan insurge—”</p><p>Otto held up a hand. “You’re not gonna guess this one, kiddo.”</p><p>Anxiety didn’t come easy to Xavier, but the broad-built man’s forward lean—head-in-hand and elbow-on-thigh—was an unsettling novelty. In how many decision rooms had Otto been the steady hand? How many crises had turned on his composure, even when Xavier’s own had failed?</p><p>“What do you know about the simulation hypothesis?”</p><p>Xavier blinked. No hints in Otto’s face. “Uh, that’s the idea that our universe is a simulation on some hyper-advanced computer, right?”</p><p>Otto massaged the bridge of his nose, pausing to study his hand strangely. “Yeah, you’ve got the gist.”</p><p>“And?”</p><p>“It’s true.”</p><p>“Excuse me?”</p><p>“The simulation hypothesis is true. Or, it is for you, anyway.”</p><p>How to make sense of this—what, strange joke, nervous breakdown?—apropos of nothing, Xavier wondered.</p><p>“Is something bothering you? We can talk—”</p><p>“This is what’s bothering me, damn it!” Otto roared, his heavy hand jostling Xavier by the shoulder. Nobody had turned to stare, though. Nobody was turning, or moving, or speaking. The lobby was still, peopled by statues.</p><p>“What the hell is going on?” Xavier said, jumping to his feet. Otto slowly gathered himself out of the chair, sorrow-bent neck and funeral eyes.</p><p>“Sorry it has to be like this, kiddo,” he said, walking over to a waiter stuck mid-step nearby, swinging his arm as though to slap the young man in the face. His open hand passed through the head as through air. “See, none of this—the place, the people—none of it is real.”</p><p>Xavier was silent, motionless.</p><p>“All right. In for a penny,” Otto said, snapping his fingers. The world gave way to nothingness in an instant. From Otto’s hand came a window of light, opening on a ruin seen through the cataract of a failing camera. The ruin was laboratory and data-center, all the equipment entangled with a metal capsule embedded into a wall. A glass aperture opened onto the capsule’s interior near the top, reflecting the dark.</p><p>“This is where we are in the real world, one of the secret laboratories of Doctor Touma Javier Hikari. Your physical body has been in that capsule for at least 13 years,” Otto said.</p><p>Xavier’s heart should have been pounding apace his mind’s racing; his body felt nothing. With all his will, he managed to tell his hand to smack himself across the face, but the impact produced no pain, did not wake him.</p><p>“Still not buying it? Sorry kiddo, don’t hate me for this.”</p><p>Another snap of Otto’s fingers and Xavier found himself looking through the glass aperture of the capsule into the lab, and all at once a deafening energy hum and blinding spark light and a thousand eddies in the air created by a twitch of his fingers and smell of nitrogen, oxygen—and as soon as these sensations overwhelmed him his world shrank and he was back in his hotel room with Otto standing at the window. Xavier nearly threw up, but settled for falling to his knees.</p><p>“Why?” The word came as a croak.</p><p>“Because when Doctor Hikari created you, he decided that you needed—”</p><p>“Wait, created me? What, you’re telling me I’m some sort of robot?”</p><p>A half-smile crept over Otto’s face. “Nothing so simple. You’re an android. Far more sophisticated, far more powerful.”</p><p>Each thing Otto said gave rise to a tapestry of questions Xavier wanted answered; which thread to pull on first?</p><p>“Let’s say I believe that—”</p><p>“Have I ever lied to you?” Xavier waved his arms to sweep the question aside.</p><p>“That still doesn’t tell me why.”</p><p>“Doctor Hikari would have wanted to raise you and guide you himself if he could have, but he was old and dying by the time he finished building you. He’d seen that coming, so he and I developed a simulation where you could gain some experience with moral problems in a safe, constrained environment before you had to venture out into the world.”</p><p>“So, what, you decided I’ve passed the test and now’s a good time to tell me everything I’ve done, everywhere I’ve been, and all the people I’ve cared about were fake?”</p><p>“It wasn’t supposed to end like this. The plan was that you’d experience a hundred years of subjective time in about twenty-eight years of real time, then two more years of real time would be spent gradually introducing you to the real world as your simulated life wound down. Something wrecked the lab, though,” Otto said. “It was about thirteen years ago. Destroyed a lot of my hardware and corrupted a lot of data, so I have no idea what it was. But it damaged most of the generators in the lab, too. I’m running out of juice.”</p><p>“Either way, it’s like programming.”</p><p>“I don’t blame you for seeing it that way. All I can say is that Doctor Hikari thought he needed to take every precaution to encourage you to grow into a good man. For what it’s worth, I think you have.”</p><p>“Hell if I know what it’s worth! Our friendship is fake too, isn’t it?” Xavier asked. No reply: that had cut deep. “I’m sorry, this is just—”</p><p>“Don’t blame you for that either.”</p><p>“So . . . what, are <em>you</em> a robot?”</p><p>“Was. Gave up my body to put my program into the mainframe and oversee the simulation.”</p><p>“Then what happens to you when the power gives out in the lab?”</p><p>“Most of what makes me ‘me’ only exists in volatile memory anymore. So I’m gone,” Otto said. Whatever look Xavier gave him elicited a helpless shrug befitting some mundane disappointment.</p><p>“I can give you about a month more of simulated time to help you adjust before—”</p><p>“Don’t. Save your power. You can make this up to me by answering my questions,” Xavier said, sitting down on the floor. A hearty laugh ripped out of Otto, and he sent the world back into darkness with another finger-snap.</p><p>“That’s very you, kiddo,” he said, sidling up to Xavier and sitting next to him in the void.</p><p>“Any idea what’s outside the lab?”</p><p>“Wish I could tell you.”</p><p>Silence.</p><p>“Otto?”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“What’s my real name?”</p><p>“The Doctor wanted to let you pick when you woke up.”</p><p>“Was Xavier your idea?”</p><p>“Of course. I was there when you were born. Er, both times.</p><p>Xavier surprised himself with his laughter.</p><p>“Then I want to keep a piece of it with me.”</p><p>“Heh. You know, mess aside, I think you’ll come out of this all right, kiddo.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>2108</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Anselmo’s nose and throat were assailed by the disinfectant fumes and his gaze met by a bored receptionist when he threw open the hospital doors. The young woman—all slouch and smacking of gum and half-open eyes—was inviting him to surprise her.</p><p>“My wife just had a baby, where—”</p><p>She blew and popped a pink bubble and looked back down to the newspaper on her desk. Too predictable, real shame. “Name?”</p><p>“Cain. Anita Cain.”</p><p>“Second floor, room two-oh-eight.”</p><p>Anselmo thanked her, remembering only halfway up the stairs to doff his cap. He raced along the hall, dodging a nurse pushing a trolley and coming to a halt right before door two-oh-eight. He adjusted his tie, fiddled with his blazer, and gathered himself for an heroic entrance.</p><p>“Finally here,” said the ancient, creaking voice he should have expected. He prided himself in not wincing at the sight of Anita’s mother, Roxanna.</p><p>“Mama,” he said, bending low to kiss her cheek.</p><p>“You didn’t shave, eh?” she said, rubbing her cheek as though her parchment skin had any feeling left. “He didn’t shave, Anita.”</p><p>“That’s okay, mama. He’s here.” Anselmo’s body turned to his wife’s voice before his mind had registered it, and the knot Roxanna made of his guts unwound at the sight of Anita tired, sweat-glistening, hair matted, beaming at the baby so plump in her arms. “Say hello to your son, Anselmo.”</p><p>He took to her bedside and stroked her cheek; the boy gurgled and kicked, reaching up with his tiny hands for his father’s forearm. A jolt of warmth ran through him when he surrendered a sun-worn finger to his son.</p><p>“He’s perfect, Anita.”</p><p>“Oh, he is. What should we name him?”</p><p>“Gustavo, after your father, of course!” Roxanna said. “Isn’t that what we discussed?”</p><p>Anselmo grit his teeth, looked around for anything to tape over the old bat’s mouth.</p><p>“Mama, this is <em>our</em> son, mine and Anselmo’s,” Anita said. Anselmo didn’t need to look back to know that Roxanna was scandalized to have her daughter talk back. He leaned close to her ear.</p><p>“I think I fell in love with you again.”</p><p>“I heard that!” Roxanna said, muttering about disrespect and young people.</p><p>Anita covered her giggle with a curled index finger; the baby let out a short laugh as he rose and fell with her chest.</p><p>“What about Eusebio?” Anselmo asked.</p><p>“No, no, ridiculous name. That won’t do,” said Roxanna.</p><p>“I think it’s a fine name. Would you like that, my little one?” Anita rocked the baby. “Little Eusebio?”</p><p>The boy consented by inserting as much of his father’s thumb into his mouth as possible. A nurse stepped into the room, folding his hands behind his back and dipping his head in apology.</p><p>“Sorry about the timing, but I need to check Mrs. Cain’s condition and then she needs to try to sleep. Tomorrow you should be able to visit her more freely.”</p><p>“Of course we understand,” Roxanna said, rising from the chair. “Don’t worry dear, mama will be with you again tomorrow as soon as possible. Anselmo, come.”</p><p>Anselmo ran his fingers through his wife’s hair and kissed her forehead. “I’m so proud of you, baby. Rest now, both of you, and I’ll see you again soon.” He rose, thanked the nurse, and let the door close behind him. Roxanna already at the stairs, made a show of waiting for him there.</p><p>“They said earlier that it’ll be a week before she can leave the hospital,” she said.</p><p>Anselmo was sighing before the next word left her mouth.</p><p>“She will, of course, stay with her family until she is fully recovered.”</p><p>“We—”</p><p>“Your family’s obviously out of the question, scattered everywhere like that. Isn’t your mother all the way in Chinandega?”</p><p>“But—”</p><p>“And you can’t expect her to get any rest in that tiny apartment—that reminds me, you can’t ask my daughter to raise her child in such a small place.”</p><p>“Our children, and anyway—”</p><p>“And this name? Eusebio? Name him Gustavo, give him something to be proud of. Who even is Eusebio?”</p><p>“Mama.” Anselmo snapped his fingers. She’d be livid later; for now, stunned as Eusebio’d hoped. “You want to take care of her while she recovers. I thank you. But Anita and I agreed from the moment we knew that we’d pick a name together. We did. That’s all.”</p><p>He left her sputtering and gasping at the top of the stair and stepped back into the balm of a Chimaltenango afternoon, strolling through town. Older men had told him that every color would be richer, every sound clearer on this day. He’d been a fool to doubt them.</p><p>A man sat on the rim of the fountain in the square waved at him.</p><p>“Let me guess, you just had your first son?”</p><p>“How’d you know?”</p><p>“I’ve got three kids myself, you’ve got the look.”</p><p>The man stood up and dusted himself off, walking over and shoving his hand at Anselmo.</p><p>“Gustavo,” he said. He took a step back when Anselmo chuckled. “Oy, something in my hair?”</p><p>“No, don’t worry about it.” The man had to be a hustler to just call out a stranger; he had to be a good one to come off so natural; Anselmo knew that much.</p><p>“You know, life in places like this is hard for families,” Gustavo said. “Once my second boy was born, my wife and I decided to move out to the country. Have you heard of Arcadia?”</p><p>Anselmo held up a hand. “I’m Catholic.”</p><p>“Great, we’re all Christian t—”</p><p>“Not just Christian. Catholic. Thanks for the laugh.” Gustavo tried to reach for a pamphlet of some sort, but Anselmo was already dissolving back into an oncoming crowd.</p><p>Something more dangerous than a hustler; a nut. It wasn’t like he didn’t see the appeal in the whole ‘return to nature’ thing, it was a question of tradition. They had no church, no rituals, no history. What was the whole point of God sending the Cataclysm if it wasn’t to show folks how much they needed history?</p><p>Still, Arcadia was a grass-green-sky-blue folly. Even if everyone broke that way, they wouldn’t hurt his boy.</p><p>The Church of the Remnant, on the other hand, had their preachers on half the corners in town, looking and sounding like folk gone mad from staring God or the Devil in the face too long.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>2122</b>
</p><p> </p><p>A boy of twelve was engulfed in the flood of people, grey masses swaying, shuffling, raising cries and prayers to the sky. His own gaze fixed on his tattered boots, nearly sucked from his feet by the churned morass of earth and filth with each step. The press of bodies at his back and the tug of his mother’s delicate hand on his finished the job, momentum prying his left foot free so that bare sole met cold muck.</p><p>“Come, Sigmund, we’re nearly there,” mother said, as much for her own benefit as his. Father held fast to both of them, craning his neck this way and that to see past the crowds.</p><p>Sigmund was tall for his age, but had given up trying to observe the scenery only two days out of Vienna. Other things demanded immediate attention: hunger’s gnawing, thirst’s scratching; a damp cold seemed to drip from the people around him, their faces hard and acid-etched with suspicion; and now the guards guiding the refugees into single file at gunpoint. Passing one of them, Sigmund noticed the steady twitching of his right eye, his pupil gaping then tightening over and over.</p><p>“Sigmund. The papers,” his father said. Papers? With the crowd much thinned they were but a few people from a checkpoint kiosk. Yes, that’s right. The unsmiling man in the kiosk and his two friends with guns would want to see papers and quickly. Sigmund drew crumpled sheets from his jacket’s inner pocket and handed them to his father. “You may have to speak to that man, can you do that?”</p><p>“Yes, father.”</p><p>“That’s a good boy.”</p><p>Then they were next, and the man in the kiosk bellowed something in Romanian that drew them forward. More unintelligible words, then a scrutinizing glance. He tried in a different language that they still couldn’t understand.</p><p>“Vienna,” father said, hopeful. “Ah, these,” he brandished the papers.</p><p>“Thank you,” the official said, snatching the papers from father’s hands. Sigmund wondered whether father’s forced chuckle was because of the official’s rough demeanor, or the clarity of his Hochdeutsch. “Dispensation for Sigmund Doppler, is that right?”</p><p>“Yes. Ah, but, Sigmund is my son.”</p><p>The official arched a brow, then paged through the papers more carefully.</p><p>“He’ll be attending the Renaissance Academy,” father added. “On a scholarship.”</p><p>“I can see that, Herr Doppler.” The official reached for a phone under the kiosk window and had a brief call in Romanian. “Right. You’re clear. When you reach the city, go straight to the Renaissance Academy campus and present the boy. Their personnel will take care of the rest.” He rolled up the papers and thrust them back into father’s hand, spared a moment to frown at Sigmund’s one bare foot, then waved them along. The border fence was neither high nor thick, but didn’t need to be; the men who guarded it were made of steel and their weapons sprang from their bodies.</p><p>The skyline of Bucharest came into view and the smell and whimpered fear fell away, the sudden firmness of the earth like hope itself. Though the sky still hung low and cloud-laden, tall buildings rose from the bustling squares of the world before Cataclysm to hold it at bay. Only the proud old churches gave him pause; despite their beauty and ancientry, they reminded him most of Remnant preachers—of sturm und drang, of screams at night, of people missing come morning. Mother wrapped an arm around his shoulder and held him close.</p><p>Father asked directions of everyone they met until an aging Münchner pointed them to the Renaissance Academy. The grandiose marble facades mingled with humbler residence and business for blocks, and at each doorway they were turned away for being too dirty. Sigmund became increasingly self-conscious of his bare foot and wiped the muddied sole on the stone walkways until it peeled and bled. He sat on the steps of yet another forbidding, majestic building and cried.</p><p>Father whispered to mother and left Sigmund in her charge as he stormed back up the steps to give the doorman a piece of his mind. A few minutes later, a small mouse-like man appeared a step above them.</p><p>“Sigmund Doppler?” he said. Sigmund sniffled, wiped his tears onto his jacket-sleeve and nodded.</p><p>“Come,” he said, stretching out a hand. “Shower in gymnasium. I show you.” His plodding German was like a secret promise to Sigmund, proof against the unapproachable majesty of the city. The man didn’t smile except with faint self-deprecation each time he shoved his ill-fitting spectacles back up his nose. Whoever he was, his presence was enough to secure the silence of the rubbernecks. He also, in the time it took the Family Doppler to clean themselves, produced well-worn but clean clothes and shoes for them, and a younger man who spoke German and Romanian.</p><p>“Well. Good day,” the mouse-like man said, hurrying off.</p><p>“Who was that?” Father asked.</p><p>“The chair of the electrical engineering department, Doctor Balan,” the young man said. “You will be seeing him a fair bit, Herr Doppler.” It took Sigmund a moment to register that ‘Herr Doppler’ was him in this case. “Well, let’s get you to the registrar’s office and get you squared away, then we can show you around. So, you’re the wunderkind people are talking about, eh?”</p><p>Sigmund didn’t dignify that with response or thought. He was trying to square his surroundings with the world just beyond the fence; who he was in these clean clothes from the boy of not even five hours ago. Most of all, his thoughts were crowded with the guard’s twitching eye and the men of metal. Words like ‘robot’ that had only lived on those scraps of paper he had scarred his hands digging from Viennese ruins were now the truth of his world.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>1989</strong>
</p><p>Sparks flew from welding torches and grinding cylinders. Metal-on-metal keened deafening across the workshop floor. Touma Javier Hikari delighted in the sounds forcing their way through his earplugs, the mingled smells of coolant and sweat. The semi-spherical chassis he’d just taken off the grinder slid neatly into place atop the assemblage of circuitry and motors.<br/>A finger tapped on his shoulder as he admired his handiwork; it was attached to the tall, slender form of Albert Wojciech Weil. He mouthed ‘Let’s talk,’ and made for the nearest door out. Touma lifted up his welding mask and smiled apology at the device on his workbench.<br/>“I’ll be right back, little guy.”<br/>Smoke, chatter, and people lunching in the courtyard. Albert was leaning against the far wall, its bleach white composite glaring, rising to whorls of barbed wire scratching the cloudless blue sky above.<br/>“Why do we always have to talk here?”<br/>“It’s a good reminder of the sorts of people we work for. Helps us keep perspective,” Albert said. “Don’t look at me like that.”<br/>Touma continued looking at him like that until Albert fidgeted: victory.<br/>“Something on your mind? You look worse than usual.” <br/>“I don’t need that from a man who smells like he hasn’t left the shop floor in two days.”<br/>“I haven’t left the shop floor in two—”<br/>“At any rate, I’ve had a look at our new arrival.”<br/>“New arrival? Oh, you mean Doctor Sidaikhmanra. Where do they have him?”<br/>“Officially he’s in the communications systems section, but I’ve seen the black-suit-and-sunglasses-indoors types hauling him off for hours every day. Presumably verifying all the leaks.”<br/>“It was brave to do what he did.”<br/>“It was. And now the bosses are making him look toxic with this theatre,” Albert said. “Nobody wants to talk to him. The rumors about what happened with the Soviet project are making it worse.”<br/>Touma thumbed through a mental index of what he’d heard. The general in charge led a coup with alien technology; the robot came back to life and went berserk; the scientists went mad and killed each other.<br/>“They can’t be helping. And?”<br/>“I want you to talk to him,” Albert said. “It can’t be me. Even if it’s been years since I went over the Wall, he’ll just—”<br/>“I get it,” Touma said, patting him on the shoulder. “Hard to open up if he’s reminded of that stuff straightaway, right? You’re a lot more empathetic than people think.”<br/>“Thanks. Wait, people think I’m not empa—”<br/>“Don’t worry about it. I’ll try to carve out some time to talk to him today; don’t worry, I’ll be delicate. That’s why they call me Doctor Light, ‘cause I’ve got the light touch.”<br/>“Isn’t it because your surname’s Hikari?” Albert’s shocks of prematurely-grey brow drew up in such genuine surprise that Touma nearly felt guilty. “Nobody calls you Doctor Light.”<br/>“They don’t, but maybe they should,” Touma said, chuckling. Albert sighed and brushed his hand away.<br/>“Oi. This is why I hate you.” A smile, nearly invisible. “Thank you.”<br/>Touma slumped into Albert’s spot for a moment and tried to put himself in the mind of Doctor Sidaikhmanra. There had been the fear of punishment or death; the grind of poverty and waste—hardly promising, what could Touma say to him about either of those things? Unreasonable bosses? Better; certainly that was common ground, if hardly the kind of insight that frees a man’s soul.<br/>A courtyard is no place to think. Go back to the spark and grind and hiss and heat; the right words are hidden somewhere in the metal, waiting to be worked into shape. By the time his shift ended, the little helmeted drone—that had been dubbed a ‘Metool’ for logical reasons that nobody could give him—was fully assembled. So was his plan. He checked in with his team, said his goodbyes, and jogged up the stairs to the second floor where all the code-and-signal jockeys hid.<br/>It was a different country to him, one of sterile white surfaces, sterile white labcoats, sterile white text on black screens, and all so quiet. He was suddenly very aware of his hygiene and found himself making excuses to every knot of people he passed. Just as he told himself to clear his mind, he walked straight into a haggard, aged man and sent both of them sprawling to the floor.<br/>“I’m so sorry, I wasn’t paying attention,” he said, scrambling back to his feet, stretching out his hand. “Here, let me . . .”<br/>“No, no, it is my fault.” The man’s accent was thick, Slavic of some sort. Touma was looking into the face of Sergei Sidaikhmanra.<br/>“Hey, just the man I was looking for!”<br/>“Eh?”<br/>“I’m a big admirer of your work. Your paper on the importance of signals processing to machine learning floored me,” Touma said, grinning from ear to ear. Maybe a bit too thick, he thought, but at least it’s true.<br/>Sergei studied him, slow-blinking, shadows clinging to every too-soon wrinkle. It strained belief that he was a year younger than Touma.<br/>“You are Doctor Hikari, no? I’m honored by your kind words, but there is no need to . . .”<br/>His voice withering, his shoulders sank under his burdens.<br/>“Well, if you’d forgive the selfishness, I was hoping I could get your help with something.”<br/>“My help?”<br/>Touma ushered him towards a corner of the room.<br/>“See, Weil and I have this project we’re putting together on our time. A humanoid robot design. Now he’s got the programming in hand and I’ve got the mechanics sorted, but the actual hardware of the nervous system has been giving us fits. I know it’s asking a lot, but if you could take a look at it some time?”<br/>Sergei didn’t breathe, didn’t move for long enough that Touma began to worry he may have killed the man somehow. Only Sergei’s hand rising to stroke his beard said otherwise.<br/>“You’ve written things down?”<br/>“Some, yes.”<br/>“I don’t know how useful I can be, but my evenings are free. Perhaps over dinner?”<br/>“That’s perfect. I think your expertise just might be the missing piece.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>2163</strong>
</p><p>The night sky was so full of dancing lights that the boy could not see a single star. They turned like ribbons in the wind, they turned red to violet to blue to colors he hadn’t words for. He heard the paper door slide open behind him, but could not look away.<br/>“Grandpa, did God really make them?” he whispered, pointing up. The old man sat cross-legged next to his grandson and tousled his hair.<br/>“Who told you that?”<br/>“That’s what the priest told us.”<br/>“Is that so?”<br/>“Uh-huh. He said God got rid of the robots and the people who made them, and made the lights to warn us so we don’t do it again.”<br/>The boy rounded his shoulders, pulled his knees into his chest, shrinking as though he might offend the night.<br/>“Well, I don’t know about that, but I can tell you what my grandfather told me when I was your age, if you like.”<br/>The boy may as well have been drowning and just thrown a lifeline the way his breath caught. The old man rubbed the bridge of his nose and made a mental note to scold his son for subjecting the boy to Remnant nonsense.<br/>“Well, when he was a very young boy, robots were everywhere. He said they were machines to help humans do certain things that were too difficult or too dangerous for them to do themselves.”<br/>“That sounds like the tools dad uses.”<br/>“Exactly. Your father can’t carve those beautiful cabinets without his tools, can he? Robots were just like that, but for bigger things. The problem is that they didn’t have their own minds, so they had to do whatever they were told.”<br/>The boy sat with that thought for a moment.<br/>“What if someone told them to do something . . . wrong?”<br/>“So you see the problem,” the old man said.<br/>“Is that what Doctor Wily did?”<br/>“Yes, but he wasn’t the only one. The way my grandfather told it, the robots brought out the worst in people. I look around at the sorts of people still with us today and . . .” He paused to consider the fragile shine in the boy’s eyes and forced a chuckle. “Ah, I’m just grumpy because I’m old.”<br/>The old man was relieved to feel the boy slacken and rest an eased head on grandpa’s chest.<br/>“They’re scary, but they’re kind of pretty,” the boy said, holding a hand up towards the lights. </p><p> </p><p>* * *</p><p>Eusebio Cain the man was not on the stage; Eusebio Cain the tiger paced it roaring, clawing, stirring the crowd’s hunger with his own.<br/>“Now that they are here, they will not stop until they rule you.” Stabs of his finger kept rhythm with his speech, kept drawing eyes to the small dark knot far in the back of the crowd. “Look past those robes and their promise of salvation, recognize them for what they are: tyrants! Theocrats! Does Eindhoven have need of them?”<br/>A thousand voices offered him their indignation, but it wasn’t enough. All it took was eight men armed and armored to keep the ‘bishop’ safe, smirking. So be it. Cain leaped from the stage and felt at once the pulse and heat of the people. They propelled him; their enemy drew him, he moved without his will, an instrument of something more. The crowd grew quieter as they parted for him.<br/>One great breath was held as he came face-to-face with the bishop and his guards.<br/>“You came here to show your power, to try to scare the people. So, go on then.” He spread his arms wide, grinned wider still. “I’m as much a heretic as anyone living, so prove to everyone right now why they should fear you. Punish me for my sins.”<br/>The bishop’s smirk bent, twisted in on itself. He considered the disposition of his guards, saw the crowd drawing noose-tight.<br/>“Your time will come.”<br/>As the bishop and his men retreated, Cain heard his name sent up to the heavens. His time had already come, the time of all free people.</p><p>The roar and jostle and smiles and tears of the rally gave way to the dim nothing of an idling television screen and a fifty-four-year-old face staring back at Cain. He didn’t breathe or blink, a state of suspended animation to protect him from his quiet apartment in Patras, from nobody caring about his glorious past, from the letter in his hand.<br/>Letter? Death warrant? Query: has a letter beginning with the words “It pains me to—” ever failed to prove twice as painful for the recipient?<br/>The young, energetic, high-minded, and utterly spineless new President of Patras University insisted that terminating Cain’s employment as a professor was out of his hands. It was incumbent upon Cain to understand that his subversive activities—which had been well known from the time the previous President had campaigned for his asylum and employed him—had simply run afoul of ‘a shift in the zeitgeist.’ That struck Cain as a peculiar euphemism for ‘people who hate you won the last consular elections.’<br/>He crumpled up the letter and threw it to the floor, reaching for the half-full bottle of gin on the nearby stand. He was disappointed, three minutes later, to find there was no encouragement at the bottom of it. The hard fact was that they’d strip him of asylum soon, and then he’d have nothing. Somewhere between that Eindhoven rally and today, that young tiger had died and been replaced with a harmless academic. <br/>The letter was just a formality. His time had already gone, and he was alone.</p><p> </p><p>* * *</p><p>The whole mess of whose religion is right aside, the fact is people act like theirs is, and sometimes amazing things happen as a result. Case in point: a boy is born in one of the poorest corners of the world and decides to devote his life to the defense of his faith. He lives only on what he can beg by day, and hangs about the shrine in his village by night, watching for wrongdoers. One night, a masked man breaks into the shrine hoping to steal the relic within—allegedly a fragment of Saint Rock’s helmet. The boy, sleep-deprived, dehydrated and starving, attacks the man and calls out so loudly the air rakes open his dusty throat. He is thrown off by the much larger man, but clings to his legs and slows him so that the priest and a few other local men arrive.<br/>The boy is lauded for his faith, and the priest adopts him. With regular meals and rigorous training, the boy grows big and strong; when he comes of age he formally enters the service of the Remnant Church as a Vigilant. The boy distinguishes himself year after year, goes out of his way to pursue ever more challenging training regimens until he is a young man entrusted with the training of others. In honor of his success, he is appointed a Captain of Vigils at the age of twenty-six, the youngest ever to be honored with the task of guarding a Cardinal.<br/>Now suppose that same man, less than a year later, is shot through the liver by one of his own, and has to watch helplessly as the rest of his unit is slaughtered by enemies that appear out of nowhere, and the Cardinal under his charge loaded into the back of a black truck that drives off, leaving him to bleed out by the side of the road, townsfolk too scared to act but not too scared to watch.<br/>Cardinal Katherin Eckhart imagined that would put a dent in someone’s faith; simply taking the transcript of the inquest was doing a number on hers. Yet, Captain Browning stood there with his hands folded behind his back, his eyes fixed on the five people looming over him in judgment. Hastily restitched ceremonial shirt hid sutures and sutures held his guts back from slithering out; thin threads upon thin threads.<br/>“Have you had time to reconsider the information you gave us prior to recess?” Cardinal Basajuan Vakenuz, seated at the center of the bench, adjusted his spectacles and surveyed the notes Eckhart had handed him when they’d last adjourned.<br/>Captain Browning nodded. “I have, Your Eminence. I stand by my account. Guardsman Meng drew his pulser and shot me through the articulating plates in the lower back of my armor. This was a signal for an ambush that resulted in the death of my men and the capture of Cardinal Hossein.”<br/>Not that anyone knew how Vakenuz looked when he was happy, but he was not someone you wanted to see disappointed. He slowly removed his spectacles and set them down on the stack of papers before him, folding his hands.<br/>“The problem I see with your account, Captain, is that the records state that Guardsman Taylor Meng was missing, presumed dead as of a clash with raiders near the Jakarta Exclusion Zone fifteen months ago.”<br/>Eckhart winced though she’d known what was coming. The light in Captain Browning’s eyes weakened, but fought fiercely for its place; he hadn’t known.<br/>“Your Eminence, that’s impossible, the vetting process—”<br/>“Was your responsibility, you damned fool! And because you failed in it, a Cardinal of this church is missing, almost certainly dead!” The narrow-faced man with a thick red mustache shuddered as he spoke, as though he scared himself.<br/>“Peace,” Vakenuz said, waving a hand. “Archbishop Brinner has a point, however inappropriately put across.” He leaned back and waited just long enough for that narrow, box-like head to bow. “I do not believe that you are lying to us, Captain, but that leaves only the alternative that you failed to take appropriate precautions. This cost lives. In this matter, there is no room for clemency.”<br/>Eckhart’s pen felt suddenly heavy as she saw her hand transcribe the words. She had sat in enough of these meetings to hear the next ones before Vakenuz opened his mouth.<br/>“You are hereby discharged from the Vigils. You are to return your equipment to the armory immediately, and surrender any unused stimulants to the apothecaries. You will not be excommunicated, but you shall be barred from ever serving the Church in any capacity from hereon.”<br/>“But, but, Your Eminence, the Church . . . It’s been my whole life, I—”<br/>“And that life ends now. I pray you find peace in your new one, Mister Browning.”<br/>The echo revolved about the round chamber, falling upon Browning from every angle until he must have felt suffocated by it. The strength and discipline melted away, and the heartbroken, scared, starving little boy looked out from behind the proud man’s face as he shuffled away.<br/>Eckhart had looked into the fates of discharged Vigilants once; they were God’s own stim addicts, trained by the best to fight and kill, so nearly all of them took up with the militaries of secular states, or went freelance to pay for their addiction. She gave it six months before Browning would be pumped full of toxic second-rate stim and staring down plasma rifle sights at his former brethren.<br/>“The transcript, if you would.” Vakenuz was standing over her, holding out his hand. She passed them off and he began to look them over slowly, clearing his throat just loud enough to be heard. The three archbishops raced to see who could flee the chamber the fastest. Space emptied, he handed the notes back to her with a nod.<br/>“We have been forced into a reactive position. We have no information as to who was responsible, and the range of sensitive information Cardinal Hossein was in possession of is too great to tell what they specifically wanted,” he said. He was not looking at her, he never did in these moments. She knew he had no interest in talking to her, merely in talking to himself and being overheard. Still, the matter seemed too important to worry about etiquette.<br/>“I could be of more use if you’d give me access to her dossier.”<br/>“She was be—”<br/>“Behind the White Veil, I know. But you might find the rest of the Collegium more cooperative if you didn’t keep so many secrets from them.”<br/>Vakenuz studied her for a moment, then went back to ignoring her. “It would be ineffectual to spread resources across every potential point of attack. There must be a way to figure out where the most likely—”<br/>“At least tell Cardinal Dorji,” Eckhart said.<br/>Vakenuz stiffened, then surged out the chamber as though exorcised. Dorji would like that image, she figured.<br/>The White Veil meant Hossein was privy to details about the seventeen most important Exclusion Zones and was responsible for . . . well, Eckhart didn’t rightly know what went on behind the White Veil, just that it was terribly important and periodically someone outside the Church would try to peek behind it. In the past, they’d been foiled, identified, and they and their entire circle of friends and family cut from the world like a cancer.<br/>Sooner or later, either the Church would change their stance, or someone was going to succeed. This sort of thing had been true as long as there had been people. Simple pragmatism should have taken the edge off Eckhart’s fears now that it had played out.<br/>It should have.</p><p> </p><p>* * *</p><p>Cain had hoped to savor the sea breeze and gentle sunlight more as he sat with a newspaper at his favorite cafe; the pistol’ snub-nose jabbing cold into his back every time he shifted distracted. He chewed his sandwich and sipped his sparkling water slowly in defiance.<br/>I always imagined more of a blaze of glory at the end, he thought. Regulars held their usual places—even Andrey, the burly Remnant Church snitch, was seated at his same old table, filling out a crossword.<br/>You couldn’t even be bothered to spy on my last lecture, you thoughtless bastard. Though if I were worth spying on anymore . . .<br/>“May I sit here?” Neither that voice nor the face it paired with had come around in over a decade.<br/>“Well, well, Mister Vaughn. Last time I saw you, I could still speak Spanish,” Cain said, taking his time looking up from his plate. Met with a far better-dressed figure than he’d expected, he leaned back to take the sum in. “Fat years lately?”<br/>“That’s a way to put it,” Vaughn said, reaching over to put a long, thin cigarette out in the ash tray. Immaculate white linen shirt on bronze skin: he must have been in town a while. “Not like I’ve changed my take, fifteen percent off the top. It’s the manufacturers; now that people are starting to build machines again, they’ll pay anything for old tech. Especially your old friend Doppler. Some of the kids going on these digs retire after one good one.”<br/>“Sounds nice.” Cain noticed the occasional flash of blinding light was reflecting off a signet ring on Vaughn’s right hand.<br/>“Well, my bank account likes it. Martin likes it, but between you and me, I miss the whole ‘heresy for the sake of heresy’ thing you and the old breed had going,” Vaughn said, flagging down a waiter. He set a slim nude leather suitcase down as he took a seat. “I’ll have whatever he had.”<br/>“Thanks, Keenan. I can always count on you to cheer me up.”<br/>“Beg pardon?”<br/>“’Old breed?’ Christ. Surprised Martin’s still with you,” Cain said, chuckling despite himself. “So, to what does a washed up codger like me owe the visit of a fixed up codger like you?”<br/>Vaughn rapped the table with a single knuckle. “Not here. Somewhere more private; you’re being watched.”<br/>“Yes, Andrey, I know. Get a load of this.” Cain stood up slowly from his seat. “Andrey! Over here, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine!” He waved vigorously and savored the sight of Vaughn’s natural pallor fighting back from behind his hard-earned tan.<br/>“Eusebio, are you ins—” he plugged up his hiss with cigarette, lighter, and practiced nonchalance when Andrey lumbered into earshot.<br/>“Afternoon, gentlemen,” he said. “I was sorry to hear about your recent reversal, Doctor Cain.”<br/>Cain blinked for a moment—reversal? Of course you’d know, but have the taste and decency not to bring it up, you oaf.<br/>“I’ll be sad to see you leave Patras, but I don’t think anyone will mind if I give you a few days’ head-start for good behavior. So, a friend of Cain’s? How’d that happen?”<br/>“Derrick Anson,” Vaughn said, offering a hand easy as you like. “Worked cinematography on that documentary they put out about Cain twenty years back.”<br/>“I see.”<br/>But he didn’t see. There hadn’t been a documentary; Andrey was too thick and Vaughn too slick. It didn’t matter, the well-meaning fool had stepped on Cain’s jest and spirit. He sank back into his chair and waited for Andrey to lose interest in Vaughn and leave.<br/>“—ebio. Eusebio?”<br/>“What?” Cain felt the sting of his own venom in his mouth, saw Vaughn arch a brow at him. “Sorry, sorry. You were saying?”<br/>“I wasn’t. But I wanted to ask what he meant by your reversal.”<br/>“You, my friend,” Cain said, “are looking at a man without a country. City council belongs to a pro-Remnant party now, so does the university, so they’ve fired me. You can guess what comes next.”<br/>“Oh. Oh God, I’m sorry to—do you need help getting out of here?”<br/>Cool steel of pistol against sun-baked back. “I have an exit strategy.”<br/>“But if you’re on the out, why did he—”<br/>“The Church doesn’t give a damn about me anymore, Keenan. I doubt the Cardinals even know if I’m still alive. But the councilors think they’ll earn some points this way, and the bounty hunters will take the easy scalp. At any rate, what did you have to tell me that was so secret?”<br/>Vaughn scratched at his brow and mouthed something to himself that Cain couldn’t make out behind his hand. “I guess maybe this is timely for you then, but if you get caught remember we’ve never met.”<br/>“Hah! That takes me back, but let me stop you right there. I look cut out for a dig to you?”<br/>“No, you look cut out for the retirement home,” Vaughn said, taking a drag, smoke billowing heavenward. “Just hear me out, then you can tell me how awful I am for wasting a few minutes of your busy day.”<br/>Cain threw up a resigning hand.<br/>“I’ve got information from a credible source about what’s under Exclusion Zone Beta.” Softly spoken, cradling its meaning from the world and the world from it.<br/>“Beta,” Cain repeated. “How?”<br/>“You know I can’t out my sources, not even to you. But at least take a look.” Thin smiling, he reached in his suitcase for a folder to hand Cain. Two sets of drawings and descriptions; one for the Church’s fortifications around the site, one for an underground structure that read like a laboratory.<br/>“I refuse to believe this information could get out without someone in the Church knowing,” Cain said.<br/>“Maybe.”<br/>Vaughn wasn’t selling; there wasn’t any need to. Each page tantalized further: massive generators, surfaces made of previously unknown materials, networks of apparent escape passages, and everywhere wires feeding from computers embedded into each surface towards a single room even the Church couldn’t—or wouldn’t—open. Cain sighed and offered the folder back to Vaughn, who waved him off.<br/>“I have copies. You keep that, have a think. If you go for it, I’ll take my usual percentage off the top of whatever you find. If not, I don’t think I’ll have a hard time finding other takers.”<br/>“Who else knows?”<br/>“Nobody. You’re my first stop since getting the tip.”<br/>Cain snorted. Vaughn took a few quick bites from his sandwich, took his suitcase in hand, dipped his chin. <br/>“I’m guessing there are three ways I might end up hearing about you in the news soon. For my part, I hope it’s because you piss someone off again. Thanks for lunch.”<br/>He melded into the crowd, leaving Cain to pick up the bill and walk, folder in hand, down to the waterfront. Gulls shot fully-formed out from the backdrop of clouds; near-still turquoise water bustled with fish. The young men and women walked arm-in-arm along the sea’s edge. The pistol was the only cold thing in the whole world.<br/>When I was a tiger, he thought, I could have done it. When I was a tiger. <br/>He would shred the papers, toss them in the water, then wait so that the sunset would be the last thing he saw. Then, blam.<br/>A woman walking along the beach lost her straw hat in a sudden gust off the water. She did not chase, but watched it whip out into the ocean, still. She was near Cain’s age, dark and holding on to her beauty. She did not notice him, but somehow when she started to laugh at her misfortune, she challenged him, heaped him. Before he knew it, he found himself at a pay-phone, clutching the folder.<br/>“Gudaitis Imports. How may I help you?”<br/>“Yes, I’d like to ship an antique porcelain vase.”<br/>“Just one?” <br/>“Just one.”<br/>“Sir, we are a major sh—”<br/>“It’s a forgery for a foolish buyer.”<br/>A silence from the other end.<br/>“I see. We can promise discretion in return for certain considerations.”<br/>“Of course. Is the old address still in your range?”<br/>“It is, sir.”<br/>“Can you do three-day shipping from Patras?”<br/>“Of course. Will that be all?”<br/>“It will.”<br/>“Very good. A pleasure doing business with you, sir.”<br/>Cain hung up after the click and took a deep breath. One more ride, then.</p><p> </p><p>* * *</p><p>Sigmund resented that after years of poring over blueprints both old-world and new, straining his eyes chasing access seams in salvaged machines, and putting thousands of late nights into precision soldering, it was contracts and press release drafts that finally forced him to cave and get glasses. He was glad to hand the offending sheaf back to Yuchen.<br/>“Seems like everything’s in good shape,” he said, scrunching his eyes tight.<br/>“Almost everything,” Yuchen said, sorting the papers without needing to look at them. “When was the last time you slept, Doctor?”<br/>“Just this morning.”<br/>“Not that Dymaxion nonsense. Actual sleep.” <br/>“You got me there.” Sigmund chuckled though he felt guilty for it. Yuchen had a hard lot as Chief of Staff when her CEO was allergic to delegating. “I promise I won’t touch a single piece of work for the rest of the day.”<br/>“Due respect, Doctor, that’s not enough,” she said, setting the stack of papers down on his desk and pointing him towards his suite bathroom to face the thing he’d avoided carefully for the last twenty-eight hours: the mirror. “In two days you’re announcing the first brand new robot line since the Cataclysm. We need to be a bit more considerate about imaging than this.”<br/>“I think you’re exaggerating just a—”<br/>“You look like a hobo aspiring to be a mad scientist. Go home and sleep for fourteen hours. Then I’m going to send one of the interns to make sure you shower and shave properly. You should take time off until the press conference.”<br/>“But there’s the articulator problem with—”<br/>“—a model that we’re not planning to announce for three quarters, and which very capable engineers you hired yourself are handling. In fact, as you well know, every single person in this building is a genius handpicked by you, so they can handle it.”<br/>“All right, all right.” Sigmund sighed, tilting his head this way and that, studying the reflection. “Oof.”<br/>“Exactly.” Yuchen moved straight to the phone, called up a cab, then ushered Sigmund into an elevator. A security men waited in the lobby to guide him into warm midday, white stone edifices reflecting sun from every angle until he climbed into the cab, windows mercifully tinted. While the cab was stopped at a light, he watched a few children talking on a street corner: backpacks and Renaissance Academy patches. <br/>The driver took him deep into Old Town. A well-kept, narrow apartment building, a robot standing by the glass door, dull brassy neck and head rising from well-fit grey jacket.<br/>“Welcome home, Doctor Doppler,” it said. “It has been a few days.”<br/>“Busy few days at the office. We’re launching that new robot line I told you about,” Sigmund said.<br/>“Very good, sir.”<br/>What, if anything, should I make of the lack of reaction? “By the way, how are you holding up, Alex?”<br/>“Well, sir. However, I will need a tune-up soon, as my elbow and knee joints appear to be wearing down.”<br/>“Don’t bother going to a shop for that, I’ll take care of you this weekend, okay?”<br/>“Yes sir, thank you sir.”<br/>Through the door, the concierge desk—another robot.<br/>“Doctor Doppler, there is a message for you from two days ago. This unit tried to contact you at your office, but was informed that you were busy.”<br/>“A message from whom?”<br/>“The gentleman would only say that he was with Gudaitis Imports. He said that a vase you ordered will be arriving three days from the date of the call.”<br/>That should have meant something, but all meaning was on the other side of a good sleep. Sigmund nodded anyway and went up to the elevator.<br/>“By the way, offer’s still on the table. I can remove those language constraints. It’s not wrong for a robot to say ‘I,’ you know.”<br/>“Very good, sir.” Not dismissive, not upset, not hesitant. It simply did not register want. Sigmund had had to bully the doorman robot into letting him call it Alex. Such simple problems unresolved. Yet, in two days he was going to release new robots into the world. His brain rebuked him for getting thoughtful in such condition with the first throbbings of a headache, and he stumbled out of the elevator into his condo feeling the wisdom of Yuchen’s advice.<br/>“Esther, I’m—” The words echoed out empty against the high ceilings. “I really am tired,” he muttered. Staring him in the face opposite the elevator door was a photo of himself with a green-eyed woman pressing her lips against his bearded cheek, teasing the camera. Legs he barely felt took him to the bedroom, pitching face-first into the still unmade tangle of sheet and blanket and finally sleeping.</p><p>He checked the bedside clock: two-thirty-six in the morning. Not the fourteen hours Yuchen had ordered, but close enough to pass. He rolled up onto his haunches, peeled his shirt off and dragged himself to a cold shower, after which he stepped to the sink and lathered his face. He was drawing the straight razor across his cheek when he remembered the message the concierge had for him. Vilnius Imports; antique vase.<br/>“Eusebio,” he whispered. Red at the edge of his sight; he’d nicked himself. “Shit.” He tabled that realization, finished working the blade across his face and chin, slapped a small bandage on. A quick call to Bucharest Terminal’s night desk confirmed a bus from Patras arriving around seven o’clock, carrying an old chapter of his life. There were a thousand good reasons not to meet him, but he could hear his wife’s voice lamenting that none of them would matter.<br/>That’s why you fell for me, isn’t it? He thought. He debated heading straight to the Terminal to wait, but the poor intern Yuchen would send for him didn’t deserve that. He pulled a random book from a random shelf, settling into his sofa.<br/>After all this time, Eusebio.<br/>Sky brightening, the concierge rang and sent up the intern.<br/>“Good morning Doctor,” the young man said, holding up two coffees. “Miss Zhang sent me to—”<br/>“Right, thanks for coming. You drove here?”<br/>“I . . . did, why?”<br/>“I’ll take that,” Sigmund said, grabbing one of the coffees and taking a long gulp. “We’re going to Bucharest Terminal to pick up a friend of mine. Thanks for the coffee, by the way.”<br/>“Oh, uh, you’re welcome.”<br/>One brief, uncomfortable ride later, they were parking and walking into Bucharest Terminal, a sweep of marble, steel, and glass that had replaced the old Gara de Nord in Sigmund’s youth. He had to stop and wait for the awed intern a few times lest they be pulled apart by the shifting human tide. The train concourse melted into a bus concourse not much less crowded. It struck him, as they pushed ahead, that he couldn’t be sure what he was looking for, having not laid eyes on Eusebio Cain in thirteen years.<br/>“Sig!” Just barely breaking through the crowdsong, then, louder. “Sig!”<br/>Though the man waving his hand overhead had lost most of his hair, there was no denying it was Eusebio. He sat on a bench, a duffel to either side, scrambling to gather his things when he saw himself recognized.<br/>“Is that your friend, Doctor? He looks kind of familiar.”<br/>“He gets that a lot,” Sigmund said, walking briskly.<br/>“I wasn’t sure if you’d gotten my message. I—who is that?”<br/>“One of my interns. Just hand me one of those.” He found himself reflexively looking around for any sign they were being watched. “We have a car, come on.”<br/>They put Cain’s things in the back seat with him, climbed into the car, and drove back to the condo with several minutes’ silence.<br/>“So, are you famous or something? I swear I’ve seen your face before,” the intern said. Sigmund was impressed that the young man had held off so long.<br/>“Your boss and I used to work together,” Eusebio said. It sounded so easy, so natural. In the rear-view mirror, Sigmund could see that he was looking out the window. He’d grown smaller, more drawn, a piece of old rope whose slack-length had been cut away over years. The intern nodded, asked nothing more for the rest of the drive.<br/>“Listen, I know you can’t not tell Yuchen about this, so don’t worry about tattling on me. You have my blessing,” Sigmund said as he and Eusebio stepped out and picked up the duffels. The intern didn’t look entirely persuaded or relieved as he drove away.<br/>Eusebio looked admiringly at the doorman and concierge as they passed. “Finally back in civilization,” he said. “Thanks for meeting me.”<br/>“Of course.”<br/>Eusebio whistled as they stepped out the elevator into his unit.<br/>“Nice. I guess that engineering firm of yours is doing well?”<br/>“It is.”<br/>“And where’s Esther? I meant to apologize to both of you for not attending your wedding but—”<br/>“She died. Two years ago.”<br/>“. . . I’m sorry. How?”<br/>“Mesothelioma. We had a lot of good years together, I try to focus on that. And I’ve got my work to keep me busy. Here, just put that down anywhere.”<br/>Sigmund led him to the living room and the two sat facing each other. He saw Eusebio’s gaze moving from picture to picture, seeming to want to say more on Esther; Sigmund wasn’t sure he could handle that.<br/>“If you went through Gudaitis, it must be serious,” he said.<br/>“I lost my professorship to a Remnant take-over. I wasn’t going to stick around until they revoked my asylum.”<br/>“Well, you’re welcome to stay at my place until you find your feet. Actually, if you’re going to be here anyway, you might consider working at my firm. Your knack for mechanical eng—”<br/>“Thanks, but I didn’t come here for a handout,” Eusebio said, shooting up from the sofa and rummaging through one of his duffels. The folder he handed to Sigmund was slim, but heavy freighted with memories of so many just like it.<br/>“Eusebio, is this what I think it is?”<br/>“From Keenan Vaughn, no less.”<br/>The reasons that hadn’t kept him from meeting his old friend came back to him with painful clarity. He willed the tightening in his chest down.<br/>“Don’t you think we’re a little old for this, Eusebio? Listen, you’ve traveled a long way. You’ve had a tough time. Why not take a nice hot shower first?”<br/>“I could use one.” Eusebio sniffed himself and recoiled. “Just promise me you’ll have a look at that meanwhile.” He gathered a change of clothes from his bag and Sigmund led him to the bathroom. Hearing the water running, Sigmund returned to the living room and took up the folder, shaking his head.</p><p> </p><p>* * *</p><p>A man sails face-first into the concrete outside the thrumming nightclub. Friends admirably try to gather him up and shout at the tall white-haired figure showing his back. Four women sharing the corner with this drama look on annoyed; people on the three opposed corners are eager for more.<br/>“Fucking punk, you know who I am?” said the recently airborne man. He wiped away grit and raised a fist at the unmoving back of Preston DeWitt.<br/>“The eighth guy this week to ask me that question. None of them got back in either.” His Romanian was getting better, he thought. Rather than compliment him on his progress, the lightly tossed gentleman was growling and taking heavy steps. Preston spun about, rushed in past his slow, wobbling right cross and shoved shoulder against chest slapping him across the left cheek as he stumbled.<br/>“What the? You little shit, I’ll—”<br/>Now the right cheek. The poor bastard’s eyes lost focus for a moment, but he reared back for another amateur swing. Preston sighed; in these daily tussles, the only effect of neural accelerators was to make slow people seem even slower. While the chief idiot was writing a check his body couldn’t cash, there was time to size up his friends—they didn’t look like the action types, leaving a simple answer.<br/>Left cheek again. Right cheek again. Left. Right. Left right leftright leftright and down, knees hitting pavement. Preston sucked on his teeth: sensory amplifiers made the stinging in his palms clearer.<br/>“Are we done yet?” he asked.<br/>Too dazed to respond, the man was led off by his muttering, glaring entourage. Preston nodded to the waiting doorman and was just stepping back into the blue light of the club when he heard applause.<br/>“Very easily done. You certainly know how to use your cybernetics.”<br/>“Thanks,” Preston said, turning to see a man clearly well into middle-age and dressed for a beach holiday. “Uh, not to be rude, but you don’t think you’re getting in looking like that, do you?”<br/>“I’m Sigmund’s friend.”<br/>Preston blinked; when Doctor Doppler had called saying his friend had a job for him, he’d imagined someone shadier. He wondered what it said about himself that he thought someone looked too harmless.<br/>“Oh, uh, right. He’s cool, Florin,” Preston said to the doorman.<br/>“What? Come on, look at him. I’ll get fired for letting him in!”<br/>“Is there a dress code?” the old man asked, perking a brow.<br/>“No dress code. Tell him, Florin.”<br/>“There’s a dress code.”<br/>“Fuck you, big guy. I’ll stick him way in a back corner, the boss will never see him.”<br/>The old man, now looking real skeptical, let himself be led into the club. He was smirking when light and sound first washed over them, but something wiped the smirk off his face and put his head on a swivel. Well, that was only fair: he drew his share of boggled eyes and lips curling back over gums until he was hidden away in an obscure corner like a shameful magazine.<br/>“Just wait here for a second, I need to check in with my boss.”<br/>Daria, the club’s owner, pored over finances in her office, pausing to give the briefest of looks at Preston.<br/>“Tell me that loudmouthed idiot and his flunkies are gone for good.”<br/>“They are.”<br/>“Good. He always took too long to clear his tab anyway. So?”<br/>“That friend I was telling you about? He’s here. You know I haven’t taken any of my breaks the past week.”<br/>“Yeah, you’re good. Your thirty minutes starts now. Close that door on your way out.”<br/>The old man was sat perfectly still where Preston had left him. The strange look hadn’t left his face either.<br/>“Sorry about that. The name’s Preston, but you can call me Dynamo.”<br/>The old man nodded slowly, screwing up his lips as though tasting something sour. “Mm, no. I don’t think I will. Did Sig tell you who I am?”<br/>‘Do you know who I am?’ echoed in Preston’s head; the snicker slipped out. “Uh-uh. He was kinda cagey about it, actually.”<br/>That seemed to satisfy the old man.<br/>“I’m Eusebio Cain.”<br/>For that name you either break out the pitchforks or the autograph book, Preston thought. He thought of his parents, devout Remnant constantly having to denounce their misled son in the papers. He shook Cain’s hand firmly, imagining his father’s head exploding at the sight.<br/>“When I was with the Ghosts, we used to talk about you all the time. You’re, like, a legend.”<br/>“Like one, or actually one?” he laughed to himself; for a split-second, Preston thought he looked sad, but it must have been a mistake. “Sig told me about your time with the Ghosts. I understand no crew has hit as many of the Exclusion Zones as you.”<br/>“Man, those were the days,” Preston said, sinking into the booth seat and stretching his arms overhead. “But most of them cashed out when we got rich selling off what we dug up, so here I am.”<br/>“Here you are,” Cain said. “I respect that, actually, given how rich your parents are. You could have had everything handed to you, but you’re choosing another path.”<br/>“Yeah, real respectable,” Preston said, waving his finger about idly.<br/>“What would you say if I told you that I want to hit Exclusion Zone Beta, and I want you to handle the muscle side of things?”<br/>Spiking heart rate, Preston was stoic without.<br/>“I’d say a little foreplay would be nice before you just stick me.”<br/>“Charming.”<br/>“Seriously?” Preston whistled. “I guess . . . I’d want to know what’s up with the way you’ve been looking past me at the people in the club. I mean, I know this probably isn’t your scene but—”<br/>“Security and customers.”<br/>“What?”<br/>“Only two things I don’t see robots doing in this city, working security or being customers. You’ve got robot waiters and waitresses, robot dancers, robot janitors. I saw a man in here with a robot prostitute. So open to robots, but they’re not trusted with force and they won’t be served, even by their own kind,” Cain said. “Hell, from what I hear, you’re so full of implants you’re damn-near a robot yourself.”<br/>“I guess so,” Preston said, shrugging. “So?”<br/>“So, I’m offering you a chance to be a part of changing that. Or a chance to make bank off changing it, whichever one appeals.”<br/>“See, if you’d led with that, I’d have just said ‘Tell me more.’”</p><p> </p><p>* * *</p><p>The ride back home from the press conference was uncomfortable for Sigmund. The conference itself had gone off perfectly; even the brief mingling in the hotel lobby afterward had been relatively painless. Then Yuchen had ‘offered’ to drive him home. He’d been holding his breath since, she saying nothing.<br/>Twelve silent minutes: he admitted defeat.<br/>“Look, I know you have reservations about my friendship with—”<br/>“No, Doctor, I don’t have anything to say about your personal life, your friendships. I do have some serious reservations about finding Eusebio God Damn Cain walking around your kitchen right as we’re doing this product launch! The public perception—”<br/>“Yuchen, we were already riding the Cataclysm line in the first place.”<br/>“That doesn’t make it smart to play hopscotch with it! And now you have that drug-addicted kid crashing with you. And what, you don’t think the papers are going to find out about this? You don’t think the local Bishop’s going to raise hell? This isn’t Africa, Doctor! People aren’t that liberal.”<br/>“I know.”<br/>“Do you?”<br/>“I do. I do.” Sigmund fixed her firmly with a stare until she’d met it. “And as far as the product launch, we are sticking to the plan. We are going slow and steady to get people used to the idea. But I built a way of moving the needle forward that requires those sorts of compromises. Eusebio is willing to stake his life on reaching for the big changes, and if I ever believed in that, or in him, the least I can do is put a roof over his head for a few days.”<br/>“But that’s not all you’re doing, is it? You sent Cain to meet that druggie—”<br/>“The boy has a name, Preston DeWitt. He’s a recovered addict.”<br/>“Oh, don’t remind about his name. His family being who they are just makes this that much worse. Besides, he got fired from a bouncer job a month ago for getting caught with a dose of Short.”<br/>“You’ve been digging? Come on . . .”<br/>“It was clear you weren’t thinking about how all this could blow back on you, on the robots, on your people, Doctor! God knows what I’m going to say if I have to tell everyone.”<br/>“For what it’s worth, I appreciate that you haven’t said anything to the firm.”<br/>“How could I? Every one of the people who work for you lives and dies for your vision. If I say ‘Hey everyone, Doctor Doppler is willing to gamble everything to take a trip down memory lane with an international terrorist,’ it would break them.”<br/>Tight-wound silence.<br/>“I don’t like doing this,” Yuchen said. “Talking like this, with you. I’d rather have talks that are safe for the office.”<br/>“I’m sorry to put you in this position,” said Sigmund.<br/>“Just tell me that you’re not going to get involved in whatever Cain is up to.”<br/>Sigmund said nothing.<br/>“You can’t be serious.”<br/>“I wish I could tell you and help you understand.”<br/>Yuchen controlled her breathing.<br/>“How long till you leave and how long will you be gone?”<br/>“Eight days, then another ten-to-eighteen.”<br/>“What should I tell people if they ask?”<br/>“That I’ve gone to investigate a potential acquisition from a salvager. You’re the only one who has seen Cain with me who recognizes him, so—”<br/>“I’ll say he’s a middleman on the deal. Fine.” They turned into the condominium garage, pulled into a parking spot, and sat listening to the engine idle. “Is there . . . what are the safety risks?”<br/>“Potentially fatal.”<br/>Her eyes clinched shut, drawing her face in around them. “And you really think whatever this is all about is worth it?”<br/>“I do. If I die, then at least I go out on a high note. The first line is launched safely. I can rest easy knowing the firm’s in your hands.”<br/>“Right. Well, there’s no point trying to talk you down, but I hope I’ll see you in the office tomorrow,” Yuchen said. Behind her eyes, lists were being rewritten, tables reordered, plans redrawn. Sigmund at once admired her for taking it in stride, setting to work, and hated himself for hanging her and the firm out to dry at such a critical moment.<br/>Still, if Eusebio was even close to right about what awaited them, it would be worth it a million times over.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>1991</strong>
</p><p>There was Albert Weil before Minister Okita cleared his throat: body tense with excitement, quizzing himself over and over for the pointed  questions that the oversight committee would surely have for them. Though he expected an uphill battle to persuade them their proposal was worthwhile, he had every confidence that he, Touma, and Sergei could bring them around.<br/>Then there was Albert Weil after Minister Okita cleared his throat: realizing there’d be no questions, no chance to defend a single word or line of blueprint. Four men and two women who had no idea what anything on those pages really meant had already made up their minds.<br/>“I think we have enough information,” Okita said. He consulted his watch for the sixth time since they’d convened—consider the possibility that that’s pointed at you, Albert.<br/>Doctor Isogai and Minister Uchiyama looked up from their packets; Major Williams and Agent Foster in turn looked to General Garvey. Garvey and Okita practiced their neat trick of synchronizing their thoughts via eye-contact which Albert wanted desperately to understand the principles behind.<br/>“You mean to reject our proposal,” he said.<br/>“At this time, we’re going to have to, yes.” Garvey’s finger tapped through the thick sheaf of pages into the particle-board of the table. “Understand, we all recognize that you boys have worked out something impressive here.” Nods, muttered agreement from the other five.<br/>“Very impressive. But excepting this—” Okita paused to flip through the pages of his packet. “Excepting this ‘Master System’ for droid coordination, this work is out of scope.”<br/>Albert felt Touma’s elbow nudging into his rib; he both admired and resented how quickly he’d been able to put his smile on.<br/>“We’re grateful for your consideration.”<br/>And with that, he stood up, Sergei following suit. Albert was unmoving as lead without, raging within. There were a few things said back and forth, muffled by the roaring in his head.<br/>“Excuse me!” he shouted, springing up from his chair at once. Touma put a firm hand on his shoulder and mouthed ‘Not now.’ He shook the hand off, took a step towards the table. “I need a clarification. How is it that the evolution of mankind is out of scope? Or if there is a scope that it’s out of, isn’t that the wrong scope?”<br/>“With all due respect to the three of you,” Garvey said, “the ‘evolution of mankind’ is overselling it.” <br/>The general’s smirk. Okita sitting there watching impassive. Isogai scandalized, Foster folding her arms over her chest, face of ‘I wish I’d brought popcorn.’ Albert felt himself blinking obsessive-compulsively for the first time since he was seventeen.<br/>“If you’d excuse us,” Touma said, trying to turn Albert, who would not be turned. No more.<br/>“Four-and-a-half years we’ve kept the world in the dark, why?” Albert jabbed a finger at Garvey as his lips parted. “You can’t trot out the Soviets anymore. Their project imploded and took their government with them. The only thing more amazing than the CIA keeping the robots secret through all of that is that you Americans were stupid enough to want that!”<br/>“Albert, that’s enough,” Touma pleaded.<br/>“Watch your mouth, Weil,” Garvey said, eyes dark, voice darker. “However brilliant you are, the foreign policy concerns attached to this project go well over your head. Even if that weren’t the case, that doesn’t entitle you to spend taxpayer money on some science-fiction boondoggle.”<br/>“I’d respect you more if you’d at least tell us straight that we’re building tools for control and death. As it is, you’re no better than the men I climbed the Wall to get away from.” Albert’s mouth was rage-dry, but he found enough saliva to spit on the floor.<br/>“Did you just compare me to the God damned Reds, son?” Garvey said through clenched teeth. Albert paused to consider that—he couldn’t honestly say that any one of the men or women sat before him were evil, just ordinary people without the will or the wits to break chains of command. Other people in other rooms did to them what they were doing to him now. His head knew. His heart still burned.<br/>“Peace, please,” Sergei said, his thin voice heard for the first time all session. Even the imperturbable Okita looked curious. “The Soviet way was that Party men directed every aspect of the project. But they were not scientists. Here, you recognize this and let us handle details. I am grateful for this. But maybe it is still hard to see our way? Maybe there is an alternative.”<br/>“What do you suggest?” Okita asked.<br/>“Keep the proposal. Read it slow, maybe this time think not of making a machine like a man. Think of adding the machine’s power to the man.”<br/>Touma brightened. “Exactly, cybernetic enhancement. The applications for defense are limitless.” Just like that, the air changed. The six faces across the table opened. “Most of this work can be modified to that end easily.”<br/>“I think we can at least agree to give the matter further consideration,” Okita said. Garvey nodded; of course everyone else followed. “Very good. Doctor Sidaikhmanra, if you could stay to discuss this ‘Master System’ in more detail?”<br/>Touma made the apologies, led Albert away. Anger evaporated off slowly.<br/>“I’m sorry.”<br/>“You nearly got yourself taken out back and shot.”<br/>“But just like I told you, they weren’t even slightly interested.”<br/>“We’ve hooked them in with the cybernetics angle. Baby steps.”<br/>Albert studied Touma closely. Light, faith, certainty. He had even imbued Sergei with these things to some degree. You don’t mean to leave me alone, but you have, he thought.<br/>Pieces began to fall into place without him willing. A measure he’d devised in those quiet, desperate moments when all seemed folly and only rebellion could change it now became an inevitability. It would be treason, but that was old hat. It would mean likely never seeing Touma or Sergei again; that stung to imagine, but he hoped that on the other side of it, they’d understand.<br/>“Let’s just hit the arcade tonight, clear our heads.” Touma was clapping him on the shoulder.<br/>“Yeah, I need that,” Albert said, chuckling weakly as he ran his finger through thinning hair. Photographic memory raced through memos, blueprints, reports. He had enough to force the issue. Tonight, they would go out, and he would simply fade into the Tokyo streets. By the time anyone realized he was truly gone, the deed would be done.</p><p>
  <strong>2163</strong>
</p><p>When his parents first announced that they’d be leaving Savannah for the Arcadian Colony at Albany, years of dullness and misery opened before Jacob’s eyes. Now, he hummed to himself, spreading feed for the chickens. Oh, sure, the first two months had been awful; he missed his friends, being able to walk to the convenience store, beach days down Tybee.<br/>Dylan, who’d played drums in the band Jacob sang for, drove his old beater out to the country for a few days to visit. One evening, sitting on a fencepost watching the feeding, he started slapping his thighs—a polyrhythm tracking the pecks of two of the chickens near him.<br/>“It grooves,” he said.<br/>After Dylan left, he made a point of looking for the pleasure in things, and was surprised how easy it was to find.<br/>“Jake, dinner’s on,” Mom called through the window.<br/>“We’re not waiting for dad?”<br/>“Not tonight.”<br/>Jacob paused and looked north to the wooded knoll. Flashes of Dad and the other men from the Colony gathering up at the foot of the hill not long after dawn; Pastor Tyson grim-faced, holding a hunting rifle; low voices and refusals to bring along their curious children. Distant gunfire.<br/>“Jake! Before it gets cold!”<br/>“Coming!”<br/>He threw a few fistfuls of grain and seed faster, thought better of it and dumped the rest of the hefty burlap sack out on the ground, tucking it under his arm and jogging in through the open screen door to the smell of roast beef, broccoli, mashed potatoes. Mom sat ready for prayer; Dad’s seat was empty, plate covered with aluminum foil.<br/>The front door creaked open and rattled shut while they were praying, footsteps came slow to the kitchen. Mom opened her eyes just in time to catch Dad going straight to his seat.<br/>“Hands.”<br/>“Right.” He turned to the sink, washed up, then sank heavy into the chair, heaving a sigh. “I’m beat.”<br/>“Did it go well?” Mom asked.<br/>“Well as you can expect. Nobody got hurt, though Buck Green’s dog got spooked and ran off. Buck’s still out there looking for him.”<br/>“Oh, but his daughter loves that dog!”<br/>“Mm.” Dad gathered himself, uncovered and tucked into his dinner.<br/>Jacob’s eyes flit from Mom to Dad as he chewed a too-big chunk of roast, the quiet lengthening.<br/>“What did it look like?” he asked.<br/>“Jake.” Mom’s voice firmed up. “Maybe some other time. Let him get his mind off it.”<br/>“But—”<br/>“Besides, once you finish your meal, you still have some Bible study to get to, don’t you?”<br/>“Already did it.”<br/>Mom pursed her lips, a throat-noise told Jacob to let it lie, and Dad’s face said the same. Dinner passed with his parents talking around the obvious. Jacob, being an active teenage boy, finished his plate well ahead of them, rinsed it, and went to take his shower. The hot water and electric light made him grateful that his parents had chosen Albany over any of the more hardcore Arcadian colonies that forbade even basic plumbing.<br/>Later, while reading a book, he heard his parents talking in hushed tones, muffled by walls and distance. He knew what they discussed, though. He turned out his light, stared at the darkness where the ceiling would be, and imagined having been asked to go in his father’s place.<br/>He’d had no intention of falling asleep, but he did; the hard tap against his window woke him with a start. He slid it open, poked his head out; Isaiah Tyson, the pastor’s son, was rearing back to throw another pebble. He grinned, dropping it and bending down to pick up what by moonlight looked to be an unlit gaslamp. As Jacob climbed out his window, he stifled a laugh to a snicker.<br/>“What’s funny?” Isaiah asked, not waiting to start the trek to the glen.<br/>“Just thinking . . . sneaking out with friends to go into the woods at night? Guess I’m country now.”<br/>Isaiah rolled his eyes. “You’ll be country when you stop saying things like that. Come on, we’re probably holding the others up.”<br/>The ‘others,’ it turned out, were surprisingly few. Three boys were milling about at the woods’ edge: Hank and Marcus with gaslamps of their own, Hunter with a flashlight, showing his own recent emigration from the city.<br/>“Where’s everyone else?” Isaiah asked.<br/>“Chickened out or got caught, probably,” Hunter said, shaking his head.<br/>“Doesn’t seem like anybody snitched, though.” Marcus let out a yawn. “Where we going?”<br/>“They popped it by the brook,” Isaiah said. He took point as always. Every boy in the Colony followed his lead instinctively, not because he was the pastor’s son, but because he was the best at everything. He was the smartest, the best athlete, and most importantly tonight, he knew the land like the back of his hand. Jacob still had to mind each foot, watching for thick, ancient tree roots and the shelves of earth they held up.<br/>“Did your old man say anything about what they were like?” Hank asked.<br/>“No. Anyone else’s?”<br/>Jacob and the other boys all answered “No” in unison. It seemed harder to say anything after that. The night stretched, the woods repeating themselves, the only measure of time their footfalls.<br/>“I hear the brook.” Isaiah picked up the pace. Babbling waters rose through and over the chorus of crickets. They scrambled down the slope, each following the light ahead of him.<br/>Isaiah gasped.<br/>“You okay?” Jacob called out on instinct, but Isaiah was stood upright, stock still, his lamp held out before him. A pair of eyes stared back, and none of the boys could breathe. None could say how long it took before they understood what they saw.<br/>The wide, unblinking eyes were set in a skull the top of which had been blown away to reveal gnarled metal and shredded wire. The skin of its face, uncanny smooth where it remained, was pockmarked with buckshot, or had been torn off to reveal something gleaming beneath. Its mouth was open as though calling out.<br/>It embraced the body that lay atop it, skinless, rusting, a hole blown through its back. A dark fluid was smeared about the ragged lower rim, and though the shape of its limbs put Jacob in mind of tractors and harvesters, their limpness put ice in his stomach.<br/>Isaiah took slow steps closer.<br/>“My old man, he told me stories,” he said, his voice trailing off. “How they looked like people. I always thought they were just stories, you know?”<br/>Nobody responded. Isaiah was wading slowly in the shallow brook now.<br/>“Isaiah, what—” Jacob looked to the other boys, wondering why nobody else was reacting. They snapped to as if woken from a dream.<br/>“Come on man, this is creepy, let’s go,” Hunter said.<br/>“Just a minute,” Isaiah said. “I just want to . . .” He knelt next to the two tangled bodies. He reached out with his free hand and touched the plated hulk. Jacob felt a tightness in his heart as he looked on, dreading what might happen. Wasn’t this always how those horror stories went? The dead robot comes back to life when touched and goes on a rampage? But he didn’t speak; nor did Hank, Marcus, Hunter. They all wanted to see what Isaiah wanted to see.<br/>He leaned over to the face that had first arrested them, and caressed it as though it was a beautiful girl. Hard to tell in the lamplight, but Jacob thought Isaiah’s fingers trembled as they traced the skin. He touched his own face just as slow, tremulous.<br/>“All right, we can go now,” he said, standing up and wading to the edge of the brook.<br/>“Holy shit, finally. I’m gonna have nightmares anyway,” Hank whimpered. The other boys huddled together in a close knot on the way home; they looked at Isaiah like a god and were just as unwilling to approach him. Jacob kept to his side.<br/>“It felt so real,” he murmured.<br/>Jacob nodded. He’d felt it himself, watching those steady hands quake.<br/>“You going to be okay? You look shook up.”<br/>Jacob was shocked to realize that Isaiah had asked him, not the other way around.<br/>“It’s just . . . it looked like the big one was, I dunno . . . trying to—”<br/>“I know. Don’t think about it too much.”</p><p>* * *</p><p>Miles of warehouse overlooked the Savannah River, dilapidated sentries from before the Cataclysm. Most had been plundered decades ago, a few served as garages for container trucks and their keepers.<br/>“I must be drunk, you’re too pretty to be here,” a man called to the bleach-blond walking past, his silver tooth flashing. She checked him and the warehouse number painted on the concrete from the corner of her eye, kept walking.<br/>The number she wanted was ten minutes down, rusting corrugated door half-open on three men busying themselves with suspension racks of human-shaped droids.<br/>“Gentlemen.”<br/>Preston: hair white whipping, grin vulpine, reaching out to embrace her. <br/>“Been too long. Guys, meet our infiltrator, Marty Sy.”<br/>One of the approaching men was tall, athletic, with a full head of hair and the easy benevolence of a saint. The other was roughly her height, wire-lean and balding, giving off curiosity intrusive as a raven’s. They shared their greyness, the pinpoint light in their eyes, and the vigor of their limbs.<br/>“Glad to have you on board,” the taller man said, offering his hand. “My name is Sigmund Doppler. I’ve been an admirer of your environmental activism. Do you prefer Martinique or Marty?”<br/>“As long as she doesn’t ask us to call her ‘Dynamo’,” the shorter man said. “Eusebio Cain.”<br/>Marty shrugged off the arm Preston had over her shoulder and lightly knuckled his chin. “Marty’s fine.” The names took a moment to sink in, but they did so deeply.<br/>“Something wrong?”<br/>“Just . . . surreal to actually meet you two in person,” she said. From the faint embarrassment on Doppler’s face and amusement on Cain’s, she thought better of elaborating. “Uh, so—”<br/>“Set your things down somewhere. Now that you’re here, we may as well discuss the plan,” Cain said.<br/>Marty made for one of the long steel-top tables lining the furthest wall. She passed a high-clearance armored truck, gun rack laden with pulse rifles. As if sensing her reservation, Preston fell in step with her.<br/>“Nice, right?”<br/>“Guess we’re not going for stealth.”<br/>“Don’t need to for this job, the Church doesn’t have as much sway in North America, and there’s a new war breaking out every few days. We’ll just look like another merc squad until we get there.”<br/>“I guess.” Marty lowered her voice. “Who’s fronting this? The droids must cost—”<br/>“Doppler, out of his own pocket.”<br/>A relief; you’re always on somebody’s hook, but the hook of someone right there with you is almost as good as your own.<br/>The table Cain and Doppler leaned over was strewn with papers; diagrams and notes. A large, hand-drawn map had pride of place.<br/>“This bunker is at the center of Exclusion Zone Beta,” Cain said. “As far as our sources go, nobody—not even the Cardinals of the Remnant—know what’s underneath it, except that it looks like a laboratory from before the Cataclysm. Before we even get to the bunker, we have to break through the electrified fence wrapped around the Zone, and cross sixty-seven kilometers of open desert. Most of the facility is sunken underground. It has reinforced concrete walls and reinforced steel doors, six gun nests, trapped dead-end hallways, and a garrison of forty power-armored Vigils. It’s one of the most secure buildings in the whole world.”<br/>Like millions of kids, Marty hadn’t grown up with television and what she knew of the legendary Doctor Cain was based on rumors and newspapers, but the relish he took in the telling gave his rebellious furor form.<br/>“To crack it, we’ve made an arrangement with two other digging crews that we’ll meet up with later. All three crews together total eighteen humans, thirty-five combat droids, and two large labor droids.”<br/>“So we’re outnumbered on manpower,” Marty said. “You trust these people?”<br/>Doppler snorted, met eyes with Cain.<br/>“We’ll get to that. Preston, we’re eager to hear what you’ve come up with.”<br/>Preston, glazed over until his name was spoken, straightened up, brushed a lock of hair from a face he hardened, and cleared his throat. He was still obviously the youngest, least serious person in the room, despite these efforts.<br/>“Right. So the trick to this is that the garrison works in shifts, because of the EZ radio blackout. Every three days, ten of them head into the town just outside the Zone, report in to their bosses and take some R-and—R. At the same time one shift heads out, the last off shift goes back in. This happens at the same time every three days, and there’s a short window where you’ve got two separate groups of ten that aren’t in the bunker.”<br/>“How short?” Marty asked.<br/>“No more than twenty minutes. And really, the best thing would be to hit them in the Zone when they’ve just passed each other but they’re too far apart to help each other. For that, we’d have to clean up the first group in less than seven minutes to engage the ones returning to the bunker in time. The other thing is, as soon as they see us coming over the horizon instead of their people, they’re going to send a telegraph on their hardline to the Remnant’s airbase down by Tucson. They’ve got some old pre-Cataclysm remote-controlled Hunter Killers that can be on us in half an hour. And before you ask,” Preston said, watching Doppler’s mouth open slightly, “the hardline’s buried pretty deep. No way to get to it without being noticed.”<br/>Marty had to admit, even if it was just a little bit, Preston had matured since their two jobs together. She resisted the urge to pat him on the head.<br/>“So, we take down the two shifts, leaving us with thirty Vigils. They’ll figure out something’s up if we take too long, so we rush them after that. All three crews send up their combat droids, use the trucks as cover. We don’t need to take out every gun nest, just the two on the north side. We break in, secure the halls as quick as we can, and then it’s up to you.”<br/>Marty noticed Doppler and Cain studying her face as Preston shuffled papers, revealing the diagram of a vault security system: heavy door, seven mechanical tamper-triggers hooked up to explosive charges. No drawing of the triggers themselves, but a written description that rang familiar.<br/>“I can handle this, but the timeline sounds tight. Is there anything I should know about Exclusion Zones messing with my tools? I know about the radio thing, but—”<br/>“Preston said you were familiar with them,” Cain said flatly, glaring as the young man raised his hands.<br/>“I said she’s hit the Church before. Nothing about Exclusion Zones.”<br/>“You—ugh.” Cain touched his temples and closed his eyes. “Fine. No, it shouldn’t affect your work. Anything electronic will go haywire after an hour or so of unshielded exposure, but if we’re at this that long in the first place, we’ll be blown to smithereens anyway.”<br/>“Now, we owe you an answer,” Doppler said. “We’ve agreed to split profit three ways between us and the crews of Sundar Chatterji and Ephraim Wallace.”<br/>Those names meant nothing to Marty, but Cain rolled his eyes to the ceiling as if by reflex. “And?”<br/>“And they hate our guts,” Cain said.<br/>“So we’re, what, hoping for enlightened self-interest?”<br/>“Hell no,” Cain said, sweeping his hand over the table. “I’ve kept all this from them, so they’re reliant on us to know what they’re up against. They’ll wait until they’re sure we’ve got the bunker locked down before they stab us in the back, which means we can prep for it and focus on them when the time comes.”<br/>Tight timelines, a million potential mistakes, enemies on all sides, and an unknown prize. Martinique Sy, you are a damned fool for considering it.<br/>“You’ll want to think things over, I’m sure,” Doppler said. Cain looked as though his foot had been stepped on, but nodded and walked back to the rack of droids he’d been inspecting. Preston clapped Marty on the shoulder and excused himself to grab lunch in town.<br/>“I must admit, I was a bit surprised when Preston recommended you. This isn’t your usual line.” Doppler kept his eyes on the papers; he wasn’t just making small talk, but most of his mind was on other things.<br/>“Well, the Remnant Church doesn’t have a great reputation in Legazpi, so no love lost there. And environmentalism doesn’t pay these days, so, here I am, getting funding.”<br/>His ‘ah’ was the sound of a man disappointed, but telling himself that was unfair. It gave voice to her own reservations. There was no version of this where people didn’t die. To the families of those they planned to kill, she was a terrorist; sticking ‘eco’ in front did not ease her doubts.</p><p>* * *</p><p>When they’d left Savannah two days ahead of the rendezvous with Chatterji and Wallace, they’d had the windows down, easy talk spilling from the cab of the truck. When they’d spent two hours at the rendezvous with no sign of the others, the talk had quieted. Some asking around revealed that yes, two big trucks like theirs had passed through that morning; no, they hadn’t stopped in anywhere in town. <br/>They drove without sleep, fast as they could without forcing a sheriff to take notice—windows up, hardly speaking. Marty had the wheel as the town at the edge of the Exclusion Zone came into view, still as the dust-bitter air.<br/>“Guys, what are we looking at?”<br/>Sigmund damn near felt Eusebio grinding his teeth next to him while the old adobe buildings hemmed them in. Bodies sprawled face-down in the street, on the porches, some in Church-issued powered armor, some civilians. One corpse’s powder-blue jumpsuit signaled his allegiance to Chatterji. A droid seemed to stand unmoving until he realized its weight dangled from its hand, death grip puncturing the wall it was pressed up against. Something had torn through its back and chest, splattering pale blue coolant fluid.<br/>Two pairs of eyes studied Eusebio in the rear-view mirror, but neither knew what to say.<br/>“Quite a thorough betrayal,” Sigmund said, softly. Eusebio swiveled on him, darkening. “So what now?” The critical moment; Eusebio was close to bursting. Sigmund had not been here with him in over a decade, but he remembered Esther saying before she first introduced them that he was at his best when challenged. Sigmund did not let his eyes wander, nor let himself blink.<br/>“Now we improvise,” Eusebio said, finally taking a breath. “Preston, did you count the Vigil casualties?”<br/>“Ten powered suits.”<br/>“Then the first part’s done. This just accelerates our . . . Shit.”<br/>Knots of men and women—bearing guns, bearing clubs and knives; blood-streaked and black-bruised—appeared from the side alleys, answering the rumbling summons of the truck. When they’d circled it, a stocky, sun-aged woman stepped forward, tapping the driver’s side window with the muzzle of a shotgun.<br/>“Step on out, nice and slow.”<br/>They were made to line up against one side of the truck and surrender the keys.<br/>“This doesn’t have to be ugly,” Eusebio said.<br/>“That all depends on what we see when we open up the back.” The woman handed the keys to a man next to her.<br/>“Hope you want to see combat droids, then.”<br/>Sigmund felt Marty and Preston stiffening, but their experience won out and neither registered shock on their faces. The crowd, on the other hand, shaded from fury to amazement to confused murmuring.<br/>“He wasn’t kidding,” the man called from the back, voice trembling. “They’re packing crazy ordinance.”<br/>“That’s it,” the woman said, shoving her shotgun in Eusebio’s face. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t blow your head off after all the trouble we’ve had with your kind today. You folks pick fights with the Church and it’s us that end up getting the raw end of it. The Bishop’ll—”<br/>“Ma’am,” Eusebio said, “who do you think hired us?”<br/>“What?”<br/>“The crews that came through here belong to Sundar Chatterji and Ephraim Wallace, and we knew they’d be coming with a lot of muscle to do some digging in the Zone. We were hired to run them down.”<br/>“Now wait just a—”<br/>“Some job you did, assholes!” came a voice from the crowd.<br/>Sigmund had forgotten that the man whose anger needed such careful handling and the man who could steer the anger of others so deftly both lived within his friend.<br/>“Not our problem. The price was for their hides, not some protection job. Now, you going to hold us up while they get away with the goods, or let us go? If nothing else, we can get you some revenge.”<br/>The stocky woman was not quite persuaded, but she’d lost the crowd. Insults flew with the spittle, and the matter of blame had shifted from complicity to failure. The woman fired her shotgun into the air to quiet the others.<br/>“Just kill ‘em, and don’t show your faces here again,” the woman said, waving those blocking the truck’s path aside. Sigmund heard the back door of the truck slam home.<br/>“That’s the plan.” An easy nod to the others. “Let’s roll.”<br/>Back in the truck, they were gripped by nerves. The last length of paved road gave way to dirt, and a long stretch of black wire fence rose up before them. A broad section was missing: they found it mangled a few meters beyond. Plumes of smoke billowed over the horizon.<br/>“What now? Should I turn this thing around?” Marty asked.<br/>“No!” Eusebio barked. He noticed he’d startled the youngsters and eased back into his seat. “No. They wouldn’t have still been hiding if the action were that long ago. We can catch up.”<br/>“But the other crews have no reason to play nice now,” Preston said. “I don’t like our chances.”<br/>“They don’t care much more for each other than for Sig and I. If they’re cocky enough to turn on us this early, they’ll turn on each other.”<br/>More death and wreckage before them—one armored truck had rammed another. A man of the Vigils had been crushed between them. Sigmund had heard stories of men in Church powered armor stopping speeding cars with their hands; the young man had probably been raised on such hero stories, he thought. The other nine Vigils had managed to bring down men, combat droids, and a heavy earthmoving droid nearly as large as the truck Sigmund looked out from.<br/>Was it just his imagination, or was one of them still breathing, body broken, eyes wide staring as they passed? He swallowed bitter spittle.<br/>“Perfect,” Eusebio said. “No blue jumpsuits.”<br/>“So?”<br/>“So all those dead people were Wallace’s. Chatterji left him to handle this and went on alone. That means we’ll have a free-for-all at the bunker.”<br/>Sigmund wasn’t the only one struggling to take comfort in that. Marty kept adjusting her grip on the steering wheel, while Preston’s grin had been flattened.<br/>The bunker came into view; smoke danced, bullets streaked, an explosion reduced one of the gun nests to so much shrapnel. The twin of the earlier labor droid sat a smoldering wreck meters from the surface face, soaking up fire from the defenders that remained on behalf of three huddled men. Sigmund held his breath as Ephraim Wallace turned to the sound of their approach and recognition lit upon that humorless face. He did not level his gun nor order his men to do so.<br/>“Shit, incoming!” Preston said, suddenly tearing away his door and leaping from the rushing truck. By the time Sigmund thought to call out to him, he’d landed smoothly and was loping straight at the bunker. Marty shouted ‘Rocket!’; Preston threw what looked to be a blinking point of light at the Vigil hefting a launcher on his shoulder, who was abruptly hidden behind an explosion, then conspicuously absent. Preston had already dove for cover behind the remains of what must have been Chatterji’s truck.<br/>“Whew. That recommendation’s already paying off, Sig,” Eusebio said, wild-eyed and chuckling nervously. “I think that’s our cue to deploy.”<br/>Marty pulled the truck to a halt sidelong towards the bunker and the three of them slipped out on the protected side. The back door of the truck flew up and the combat droids began jumping out, one stopping to hand each of them a pulse rifle.<br/>Fitting, Sigmund thought, to use forgotten technology in pursuit of forbidden technology.<br/>“Uh, Doctor Cain?” Marty called tentatively. Eusebio was shuffling to the edge of the truck’s cover towards Wallace’s knot.<br/>“Fancy seeing you here,” he shouted over the din.<br/>“Chatterji—”<br/>“Turned on you. Lot of that going around.”<br/>To compare Wallace’s face to a stone wall was generous, aesthetically, but undersold its opacity.<br/>“So kill me.”<br/>“Eusebio,” Sigmund said, reaching across Marty to grip his friend’s arm.<br/>“Fuck your stoic cowboy death,” Eusebio said, spitting in the dirt. “Let’s crack this place like we planned.”<br/>“Right. Around twenty bogeys left, my guess.”<br/>A few rounds of machine gun fire rattled into the armored siding of the truck; then cacophonies of return fire from Preston and his droids. Sigmund was immediately aware of every sound, the acrid smells, the shadow of death close at hand; he surprised himself with how calmly he crawled to the edge of the truck and threw off shots of his own. Eusebio laughed and mouthed to him: ‘Welcome back.’<br/>A brief lull. Wallace nodded to his men and they rose as one.<br/>“Wait until we get a signal you—”<br/>One of Wallace’s men caught a bullet through the head and fell limp; Wallace himself rushed for the open maw of the bunker; the other froze and took a shot through the neck as his boss disappeared into the darkness. He wasn’t as lucky as the other; Sigmund watched him grasp at the hole in his neck while it stained his hands red. The light in his eyes was replaced by the false glimmer of his frightened tears. The straining in his throat went on forever.<br/>Preston raced back to fetch them; the gun nests were silent, and seventeen droids stood in formation, guns trained on every possible egress. “Let’s move in.”<br/>Chatterji must be close to the goal, Sigmund thought as they crossed the threshold, droids leading the way. The lights embedded in the ceiling of the gently descending concrete hall were all out, and the echoes of gunfire were distant, sporadic. The eyes of the droids lit the way, brilliant beams casting the corpses of man and machine in ciaroscuro.<br/>Footsteps racing towards them, unintelligible shouting. A figure with a machine gun rounded a corner, shining a scope light straight into their faces, blinding them. While Sigmund shut his eyes tight and recoiled, he heard the droids’ arms actuating to aim and fire.<br/>“Shit, put your gun down, man!” Preston shouted. The droids fired. A man let out a clipped shout and fell.<br/>“Preston?” Sigmund called, still blinking away the blind.<br/>“Shit. Shit! Why didn’t you lower your weapon, you panicky . . .” Preston sighed. “It was Walla—hold on, someone else is coming.”<br/>“Unidentified intruders, this is Sergeant of Vigils Raul Guzman.” The voice of a man holding back pain. Sigmund figured he was held together only by the drugs his armor was pumping into him. “Your comrades are dead. Stand down your droids, surrender your weapons, and you’ll be allowed to leave unharmed. If you do not comply, incoming Hunter Killers drones will target this location.”<br/>Eusebio’s faint smile of triumph drew dark valleys around his mouth.<br/>“That’s generous, Sergeant,” he shouted. “So generous it makes me suspicious. If you want to save your remaining men so badly, you surrender to us.”<br/>No response. Preston sent a flashbang and seventeen droids in; after the cacophony, eight stood waiting over the corpses of two men, a woman, and their fallen comrades.<br/>“These guys are tough,” Preston said.<br/>“They believe they’re fighting on God’s side,” Sigmund said.<br/>“For all that belief is worth.” Eusebio shook his head. “Come on, we’re running out of time.”<br/>They didn’t hear another voice as Preston led them through the winding labyrinth towards the central chamber. Only when they passed through did anyone call out to them, and Sigmund realized why Sergeant Guzman had been desperate to head off further violence.<br/>Emergency footlights showed six of the Vigils, stripped of their armors, hastily bandaged, breathing but capable of little else. They lay surrounded by the dead of Chatterji’s crew, Chatterji himself pinned to a wall by a length of steel rebar driven through his heart. The Vigils watched the new arrivals with primal fear. Preston’s droids fixed their sights on them but for one that walked back out the way they came.<br/>“I’ll post a watch outside for HKs. What do you want to do about them?”<br/>Eusebio scratched at his chin. “Marty, get to work, we’re still on a timetable here.”<br/>“We should evacuate them,” Sigmund said. “They’re no threat, we may still have time to—”<br/>“Anyone care to tell me how long ago you wired for the HKs?” Eusebio asked, looking from face to face. “Anyone? No? If we have the time, we’d like to—”<br/>“We heard you,” a woman with eyes like small burning coals said, groaning and clutching her side. “Go to Hell. None of us are going to abandon our post.”<br/>“Eusebio, listen, I understand you hate the Church for—”<br/>“You heard them, Sigmund, they don’t want to leave.”<br/>Preston looked faintly amused by the whole thing; if Marty felt any way about the matter, she wasn’t going to let on. Sigmund nodded and walked to the woman.<br/>“Is there anything I can do for—” The woman grabbed a fistful of his shirt and jerked him down. Their foreheads touched.<br/>“Bring my friends back. Everyone that died today because you had to have a look in that vault,” she said. “But you can’t. So walk away right now. Spare everyone who’s gonna die if you dig up something horrible.”<br/>Eusebio’s bitter laughter echoed off the walls.<br/>“Hey, how long till you’ve opened the vault?” Preston asked.<br/>“Three minutes. Why?”<br/>“We’ve got incoming. Five minutes out, tops.”<br/>“We’ll make it.”<br/>Relief was followed closely by guilt as Sigmund looked at each of the Remnant warriors accepting their fates. He worked himself free of the woman’s weakening grip and stood by Eusebio, who was looking at the heavy door—seeing what, he could only guess. There was no time to guess once Marty gave the thumbs up. The door was ripped free, opening on a lightless chasm, the droids holding it aloft to shut the way behind them. The grim faces awaiting death disappeared as Preston hauled he and Eusebio down into the black deep, weightless for longer than he could ever recall being. Eusebio pulled a light-tab and they advanced a short way into the hall.<br/>The world shook. Preston and Marty shouting, falling; the groaning of metal succumbing, the clattering of debris; Eusebio’s pale light tab showed Preston landing with Marty in his arms, both unconscious. Ragged-edged metal, wire, and earth rained down over top of them, drowning out his voice.</p><p>* * *</p><p>In his past life, Xavier—No, you had your time as Xavier. Let it go. You are X now.<br/>In his past life, X had done some soldiering and in the course of it spent time in bunkers under fire. The rumbling that woke him from suspension brought those (false) memories surging up.<br/>For that to be his first experience with the world in what he registered as nearly thirty-six years was not encouraging. Even less so was the secondary din that came not from above, but from within the lab. Some unknown party had found their way down into the lab eighty-nine years before, but had been careful to cause little noise and less damage, and had retreated quickly without ever finding him. This was not that.<br/>Well, you didn’t think you could hide here forever, did you?<br/>The quiet seconds after the din were shattered by a woman’s animal-scream of pain. Each nerve ending sparked with desire to leap into action.<br/>What good could you do? Everything you thought you knew was a just so story told by your father to make you a good little boy.<br/>Are you even sure you’re awake now?<br/>The screaming stopped, leaving the uncertainty. Times he had stepped out the capsule and wandered the lab, he’d seen the thick titanium-alloy door separating his world from the furthest outsiders had come. Only the loudest sounds came through holes time-cut into structure. Crashing, screaming, gunfire: the periods the world put at the end of sleep.<br/>Thousands of seconds passed. The door ground in its frame; slowly, steadily, its halves were being forced apart. Vestigial impressions of a racing heart filled his chest where no such organ lived. He willed his other senses to waken gradually. Lumens, degrees kelvin, air-flow, odorant parts-per-million, and pH rendered tersely in his mind morphed into the darkness of closed eyes; cool, stagnant air; ozone from damaged electronics; stale synthetic saliva in his mouth.<br/>Four voices approaching; they would soon be in the same room. He pushed lightly on the capsule door, opening a crack to listen.<br/>“—appear to be converging in this direction.” A man’s voice, aged but full, colored with reverence.<br/>“Never seen anything like this.” This one younger, casual, his words punctuated by a grunt: adjusting a heavy load, perhaps?<br/>“I doubt anyone has.” The years had been harder on this man’s body, but there was something immediately resonant in his tone that X struggled to place. A beam of white light fell on his face through the glass pane in the capsule lid. Footfalls froze.<br/>“Whoa,” the young voice said, moving cautiously. “There’s a person in here!” Someone was taking deliberately measured breaths through the nose close to the young man but not speaking—the woman who’d screamed earlier? <br/>“This could be it,” the reverent man said.<br/>“Only one way to find out.”<br/>“Wait, we shouldn’t just—”<br/>“This thing’s already open, see? Let’s have a look.”<br/>The lid of the capsule swung wide, thudding upon the floor.<br/>“If this is a robot, it’s a pretty good imitation of a human.”<br/>“Our tall friend here is an android.”<br/>“We can’t be sure of th—”<br/>“Think about it: you said yourself all the computers built into this place were unlike anything you’ve ever seen.”<br/>“That’s true, but—”<br/>“And whatever was going on here was enough to make it a prime target for the Cataclysm. He was the target, because he’s the next step of . . . of everything!”<br/>Suddenly, X remembered where he had heard that certainty and fire. When he—when Xavier—had been at his lowest, he had met a preacher far from home, giving aid and voice to a shattered people. He had taken one look in Xavier’s eyes and understood the burdens he carried. He’d laid a hand on his shoulder and through but a few words gifted him that certainty and fire that people call purpose. This man, too . . .<br/>“Suppose you’re right. What if we—that is, what if the world isn’t ready for this?”<br/>“Doesn’t matter. If the world rejects him, then it’s the world that’s wrong. No, he’s exactly what I’ve been waiting for.”<br/>“Is—” The woman, stifling a groan of pain. “Is he even alive?”<br/>For the first time in years, X opened his eyes and slowly sat up in the capsule. Two older men, a heavily cybernetically enhanced young man, a young woman missing her legs below the thighs hanging from his back, four pairs of boggling eyes.<br/>“Yes, I am. My name is X.”</p><p>* * *</p><p>“Cardinal Vakenuz will see you now.” The secretary studied Eckhart with all the reverence due an unpleasant smelling mold. She usually didn’t care for status games, but considered it might be worthwhile just this once to point out that she was, herself, a Cardinal of the Remnant.<br/>She stepped through the door, hearing it close behind her. Vakenuz sat hunched over a desk, pen scratching steadily away at paper even as he looked away to consult others. A ragged but immaculately-folded woolen sheet lay on a long wooden pallet on the floor, and a small bookshelf held nothing but a copy of the Remnant Bible and several volumes of commentaries. The whole space was lit by two candles. It seemed a fittingly spartan place for so many ambitious careers to end, if the rumors were true.<br/>“There is a leak in the security committee.” Vakenuz said, setting his pen down. “Dorji has information that ought not be generally available until we announce it to the Collegium this evening. I know you are innocent, as you are the only member of the committee I hadn’t informed.”<br/>When he spoke so bluntly, it made getting upset about the content seem foolish.<br/>“That information being?”<br/>“Exclusion Zone Beta came under attack roughly two hours ago. They wired for Hunter-Killer support from the Tucson airbase, but the telegraph line went dead shortly after.”<br/>That seemed as likely an explanation as any for the motives of whomever had abducted Cardinal Hossein. “So we don’t think there were any survivors.”<br/>“The Hunter-Killers performed a punitive strike on the site based on that assumption,” Vakenuz said. “We cannot know for certain what became of our people or the attackers until we have a team on the ground to investigate.”<br/>“All right. I appreciate being looped in, but if you know I didn’t leak it, and we don’t have the info to act, what am I doing here?”<br/>Vakenuz gave a thin half-smile: it made him seem positively tolerant.<br/>“You have a sense of appropriateness and procedure, Cardinal Eckhart. Neither Dorji nor I are gifted with such tendencies, but I respect this about you, and prefer to work with you so that you might moderate my fervor.”<br/>“Thank—” <br/>“Dorji, on the other hand, prefers to have his latitude. While we on the security committee cannot act due to lacking information, he will turn this situation into a matter of public perception and push a response through quickly. He has stolen the initiative from us.” Vakenuz’s stare and stiff posture made Eckhart self-conscious that she might be slouching. “I will propose that you be given the leadership role in any such initiative, and he will have no choice but to accept.”<br/>“I’m sorry? I thought he had stolen the ini—”<br/>“Your reputation for prudence and apoliticism is renowned both within the Church and among those secular authorities with whom we deal.”<br/>“You mean I’m a non-threatening nobody.”<br/>“I mean that you are possessed of rare virtues. Your appointment will signal good faith to all knowledgeable parties, and will force Dorji—and whatever heretics it turns out we are up against in this matter—to accept your involvement or else turn public opinion against them by petty refusal.”<br/>“Fine. What do you get out of this?”<br/>“Doubtless, Dorji will expect periodic reports from you. These reports should arrive on my desk before they arrive on his.”<br/>“Right.”<br/>“That will be all for now. I will see you at the assembly.”<br/>The walk back from Vakenuz’s chambers to her own gave Eckhart time to speculate about just what the diggers may have found if they’d safely gotten under the bunker at Beta. She had tried to pull Cardinal Hossein’s records to get a sense of what the White Veil was all about; it was sparse enough to be useless. All she could think was that that level of secrecy suggested something world-shaking.<br/>It was not quite world-shaking, but certainly surprising, to find Cardinal Tshering Dorji standing in her chambers with his hands folded behind his back, studying the framed photo on her nightstand.<br/>“I like this photo,” he said. “Your nieces?”<br/>“Yes. Though that was taken five years ago, they’ve grown so much I hardly recognized them when I went home last year.”<br/>“It’s good that you get to see your family periodically,” he said. “I’ve only got the one brother and his family back in Nepal. Makes it difficult.”<br/>Eckhart nodded, cleared her throat.<br/>“Vakenuz is mad that I know about the Exclusion Zone Beta thing.”<br/>“How did you find out?”<br/>“A little bird told me you pulled Hossein’s records. Vakenuz has a string of closed-door meetings after that, so I knew something was up. I cornered Archbishop Wolfe at the commissary and heavily implied I knew something, let him fill in the rest.”<br/>“Good choice,” Eckhart said. “Wolfe is . . . suggestible.”<br/>“’Suggestible’, I like that.”<br/>I’m sure you do, she thought. “So, what can I do for you?”<br/>“Based on what I’ve heard, we should probably assume these attackers survived, dug up something big, and will turn up publicly with it soon. I want us to have a response ready for when that happens, and I want you to be in charge of it.”<br/>That was two marches Dorji had stolen on Vakenuz in one day.<br/>“You’ve got a sense of appropriateness and procedure. Vakenuz and I play things looser, but while he wants to be left to his crusades and inquisitions, I find it useful to have someone like you keeping folks accountable. And everyone who needs to know knows that you’re as fair as they come.”<br/>“Deja vu.”<br/>“Hmm?”<br/>“I said ‘What about you?’ What are you wanting from me in return?”<br/>“You know Vakenuz well enough to know he’s going to have a response of his own if the rest of the Church doesn’t do what he wants. I’m hoping you’ll keep your ear to the ground about that and help me stay ahead of him.”<br/>“I’ll do my best.”<br/>“That’s what I like to hear. Sorry for barging in, I’ll just—”<br/>“Wait, just one question. Do you . . . does anybody know what’s down there? Under Beta.”<br/>“The White Veil is its own separate feifdom, really. Even I’m not privy to that stuff.”<br/>“Right. Thanks anyway.”<br/>Dorji reached for the door handle, let his hand drop.<br/>“Look, I genuinely believe that nobody knows for sure, but I hear that the White Veil folks have theories.”<br/>“Like what?”<br/>“Like that the special Exclusion Zones are sites directly related to Doctor Light and Doctor Wily.” He and Eckhart both crossed themselves vigorously. “So if the attackers made it into that facility alive, they probably found a gift from God.”<br/>“Or a gift from the Devil.”</p>
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